A review by starrysteph
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“Of course, humanity couldn’t just look. We had to enter. We had to touch and taste and take.”

In The Space Between Worlds, multiverse travel is possible. The only thing is – you can’t traverse to another world unless your counterpart on that world is dead. 

Enter Cara, who has suddenly become incredibly valuable to her dystopian government because her doppelgangers tend to die young. Since she’s able to visit 372 of the 380 known parallel worlds, she’s taken out of the wastelands and given a job in wealthy Wiley City. And so long as Cara keeps her head down and works hard for the Eldridge Institute, she’ll be able to become a full citizen.

But she feels out of place in both the walled-off city and her old home, she pines for her stern handler Dell, and when another one of her counterparts suddenly dies, she’s thrust into old secrets on a new world.

“The universe erases me, but it also remakes me again and again, so there must be something worthwhile in this image.”

This book took me on a fast-paced rollercoaster ride with no lap bar, and I was fully invested. Each twist was unveiled so cleverly and kept the adventure moving along. The Space Between Worlds deeply explores belonging and privilege - and how much of your identity is shaped by your circumstances. 

The friction and overlap between faith and science was highlighted throughout the whole book, and I especially enjoyed the segments at the start of many chapters where they challenged each other:

“The scientists said, We did not test it enough. We should have expected a backlash.

And the spiritual said, We did not petition enough. We should have expected a sacrifice.”

The world-building was incredibly rich, and again we saw the worlds of faith and science (and wealth and poverty) clash and merge. I was moved by the depth of the religious customs explored here, such as mourning rituals that involved shared prayers and candles containing locks of hair. And there’s a massive shared belief in the goddess between worlds, Nyame, who blesses or kills during each bout of multiverse travel. Wiley City was nauseatingly captivating too, with the power holders’ delicate yet coy ways of engaging with each other, older money residents and newer residents who try their best to belong, and the manipulation of scientific data.

“Even if you think you know yourself in your safe glass castle, you don’t know yourself in the dirt.”

There’s razor sharp commentary here on class and race – and human greed, capitalism, and exploitation. 

“Wiley City is like the sun, and Ashtown a black hole; it’s impossible to hover in between without being torn apart.”

Cara has one foot in Wiley City and one foot still at home in Ashtown & the Ruralites. She has to balance the feeling of newfound security that was given to her because she is marginalized and frequently dead - sometimes abandoned right after birth - in parallel universes. She yearns for a safe place to land, but also yearns for touch and closeness that doesn’t seem to exist in the city.

There are so many different types of relationships here. Cara’s mother is often absent or dead (from overdosing) throughout the parallel worlds, and Cara sometimes has to mother her own mother. Cara has a sister, Esther, who she would sacrifice herself in a moment to protect. She finds a father-like figure in her mentor Jean, a fellow traverser. And she orbits Nik Nik, a man who sometimes runs an Ashtown empire, sometimes is her abuser, and always is unpredictable. 

And Cara has SO MUCH sapphic pining for her handler, Dell, and that manifests differently as she comes into contact with different Dells in different worlds. Sometimes she protects her. Sometimes she’s vulnerable with her. And sometimes she flirts by making immature jabs (it’s very Gideon the Ninth). 

“I survive the desert like a coyote survives, like all tricksters do.”

I loved Cara. She sometimes frustrated me, but I was rooting for her survival and for her to continue to ground herself in her morals. She’s completely lost at times and struggling to find her own voice and purpose. And I was fully invested in her journey.

My one gripe with this story is the last 30 pages went wildly fast compared to the rest of the book. I would have been okay with a little more mystery, more of an open ending, and more left for us as the readers to puzzle through. But this is still 5 stars to me and I’ll be ruminating for a very long time. 

“Death can be senseless, but life never is.”

CW: murder, death (parent/child), domestic abuse, toxic relationship, classism, body horror, war, racism, suicide, sexism, addiction, homophobia, infidelity, panic attacks, vomit

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