The Space Between Worlds

This was an engaging read, but still pretty lacking as a SF novel. Our members were glad to have read it, but equally glad to be done with it. None of us had a desire to read the sequel.

3.5 stars. It didn’t quite end up being what I thought it might be based on the summary but I didn’t hate it. The writing style is unique and I appreciated that. This is also a lgbtq+ and BIPOC forward book and I find it’s difficult to find sci-fi books that provide that much representation. I’d read a sequel if one came out!

Read as a group, please search fb group for discussion notes

The premise was intriguing, but it didn’t work for me. First of all, I’m not a big sci-fi reader, so this was out of my comfort zone from the beginning and I really struggled to finish it. I enjoyed the multiple universes and the concept of the book, but I felt disconnected from the characters and the story overall. If I had to choose my favorite character, I would pick Nik Nik from Earth 175 because he was the only version we saw that had good intentions for Cara.

I absolutely loved this book. It’s a stellar scifi novel about the multiverse and about identity. How different circumstances change the choices we might make and how to know someone to their core in spite of their multiversal selves. Cara is really smart, you get to see her thought process. It never feels like the author is just telling when she’s doing this. It’s so interesting to be in Cara’s head, her decisions always make sense with her character. Great plot twists throughout the book. 3 big ones in the first 100 pages. The plot twists are spaced well, with foreshadowing and good writing that makes the twists make perfect sense within the story. Fully fledged science fiction world, never feels like info-dumping, it feels like discovery the way Micaiah Johnson writes it. I loved being absorbed into the world. I thought this was YA based on the cover, but it’s adult science fiction even though there is no gratuitous descriptions of violence and no explicit sex scenes. The protagonist is 26 and the plot is more complex then typical YA scifi, which tends to focus more on character and/or world building than plot. 10/10 for me.