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A review by crofteereader
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
5.0
My sincerest thanks to Del Rey and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
Guys. There's so much to unpack with this book. There's an analysis of class structure; the poison of ambition; the double edged sword of greed; a discussion of (in honor of Hamilton) who lives, who dies, and who tells your story; there's love that comes with teeth and love that stands still and cold; there's adventure; there's coming home; there's loneliness and belonging and revenge and pain. And this is a relatively short book.
If nothing else, read this line: I pre-ordered a copy of the physical book for my shelf as soon as I finished reading.
I went into this book essentially blind. I got into a brief discussion with some friends right when I started where we all discussed our misconceptions of what the book was about. But blind is how Cara feels every time her watcher drops her into another universe; she's dead in all but 8, but that doesn't mean nothing can go wrong. It leads to an interesting discussion of circumstance - because what kind of person dies in over 360 different parallel universes? What makes this universe special?
Cara is a hungry protagonist - which, if you've been here a while, you know is my favorite kind. She refuses to die the way her mother did, to remain in the dirt in the desert, selling her body. She latches onto power and opportunity like a leech. But she also loves fiercely; she brings gifts when visiting family, she has a crush on a coworker, she wants more than anything to earn her citizenship and be safe for the first time in her life.
The only thing that I struggled with were some of the side characters bled together a bit. In order to keep up the pace when we had to hop between several nearly identical universes (and avoid an infodump), you have to kind of accept that sometimes Cara tosses out a name without a full explanation of the person it belongs to. But a little confusion is worth it.
This is a powerhouse debut and I cannot WAIT to see what Johnson puts out next!
Guys. There's so much to unpack with this book. There's an analysis of class structure; the poison of ambition; the double edged sword of greed; a discussion of (in honor of Hamilton) who lives, who dies, and who tells your story; there's love that comes with teeth and love that stands still and cold; there's adventure; there's coming home; there's loneliness and belonging and revenge and pain. And this is a relatively short book.
If nothing else, read this line: I pre-ordered a copy of the physical book for my shelf as soon as I finished reading.
I went into this book essentially blind. I got into a brief discussion with some friends right when I started where we all discussed our misconceptions of what the book was about. But blind is how Cara feels every time her watcher drops her into another universe; she's dead in all but 8, but that doesn't mean nothing can go wrong. It leads to an interesting discussion of circumstance - because what kind of person dies in over 360 different parallel universes? What makes this universe special?
Cara is a hungry protagonist - which, if you've been here a while, you know is my favorite kind. She refuses to die the way her mother did, to remain in the dirt in the desert, selling her body. She latches onto power and opportunity like a leech. But she also loves fiercely; she brings gifts when visiting family, she has a crush on a coworker, she wants more than anything to earn her citizenship and be safe for the first time in her life.
The only thing that I struggled with were some of the side characters bled together a bit. In order to keep up the pace when we had to hop between several nearly identical universes (and avoid an infodump), you have to kind of accept that sometimes Cara tosses out a name without a full explanation of the person it belongs to. But a little confusion is worth it.
This is a powerhouse debut and I cannot WAIT to see what Johnson puts out next!