_karinaiello_ 's review for:

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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For a debut novel written by NOT a person with an MFA, but in fact a doctorate in philosophy and a post-doctoral Harvard fellowship, this was beautifully written. This is a solid 3.5 for me but I'm rounding up, not down, because of how well done the writing was, but I realllllllly want to mark it down because the plot is too time-travel adjacent for my liking and I just really didn't like trying to wrap my brain around how the valleys work. This is a VERY philosophical (makes sense based on Howard's education) story that made me think too much about how much I wish I could go backwards 20 years and change some things, but then also what the consequences of that would be for both me and those around me. And since it's not time travel, but instead basically adjacent multi-verse valleys that are all 20 years behind their neighboring valley, what would happen if you really were able to cross that boundary and make that change? What happens to "future" you? agkdhagla it's all too much to consider!