I totally agree with the hype and how everyone is saying that the prose is so lyrical and easy to read/listen to. It flows so well and the world-building doesn't feel in your face or info-dumpy, it feels really natural and it unfolds little by little. There are so many hard-hitting parts as well where I would have to pause it and just soak in what was said. But, only for a few seconds because listening to the book I also had the urgency to continue and to pause it as little as possible.

There are also so many twists and turns that it got to a point where I couldn't guess anymore or even try to map out where the plot might go in my head. I was forced to be along for the ride. It was a great ride and I love being surprised or on the edge of my seat so The Space Between Worlds really nailed that fun aspect of audiobook listening for me.

I read The Space Between Worlds as part of the Hugo Voters' Packet. Micaiah Johnson is nominated for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo.)

On another Earth that may or may not resonate with our own, Adam Bosch has unlocked the secrets of the multiverse. Travel between multiple Earths is possible -- but only if you're dead on your destination world.. Cara works for Bosch's Eldredge Institute as a traverser, one of a handful of people able to jump between multiple worlds: 372 of them, in fact. Due to the circumstances of her upbringing, Cara has died on more worlds than she has lived, making her exceptionally valuable to Eldredge.

Cara is tasked with harvesting alternate Earths for data that differs from Earth Zero, places where people and history took a different course, and then returning the data to Eldredge for profit. It's a comfortable lifestyle, but when a new world is added to her pull list -- another Cara has died -- what she finds there brings long-buried secrets, and a deadly new plot, to light.

The Space Between Worlds is about division, about reconciliation and about justice. It's about trying to survive when you're an outsider everywhere you go. It's about what we choose for ourselves and the compromises we make, what we can live with and live without, and what those say about us. It is also a book about trauma, both institutional and personal, and the forms that recovery can take.

Johnson's worldbuilding is thought-provoking and vividly drawn, especially outside the walls of Wiley City. Her writing is beautiful and absorbing, wonderfully crafted and rich. The book resonates with our Earth without the parallels becoming heavy-handed. Cara, our narrator, is a sharp observer of the world around her with a talent for a well-turned phrase. The plot zips along, twisting and turning as the betrayals build and the surprises stack up. Characters are complex and dimensional and no one is who they appear to be at first glance, especially the members of the cast who have doppelgangers on other worlds.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Space Between Worlds. Johnson's nomination for the Astounding Award is well-deserved. Four stars.

I held onto this book for a while hoping it would live up my high expectations and make me feel comfortable with jumping into science fiction. And...it totally delivered! I thoroughly enjoyed this story and am happy that I took a leap and purchased the book before having the chance to read it first as I will re-enter this world again and again.

This book is going at the top of my Hugo ballot for the Astounding award. It's a very accomplished work; I would not have guessed it was by a new author.

Damn, it's *so*close* to being excellent! Instead, it's very very good, and you're spending both money and time very wisely on this debut novel.

Cara's world is a multiverse with very interesting rules for travel: your alt-Earth counterpart must be dead. It's very exciting to follow Cara in her travels to an unusually large number of multiversally-vibrating alt-Earths. The problems her mortality-prone other-Earth selves are succumbing to make it possible for the author to reflect on the many problems of our end-stage capitalist world without shouting or whining.

I would like to thank the author and publisher for kindly providing a review copy of this book.

The Space Between Worlds" by Micaiah Johnson is a complex well-written thought-provoking novel. Johnson creates a realistic dystopian world and multiplies that times infinity by introducing a gritty character who can be sent from to similar parallel worlds where she learns uncomfortable truths about herself, her family, friends, and enemies. I look forward to reading more books by Micaiah Johnson.

Beautiful storytelling. Captivating character development and immersive world building. Plot twists that surprise but feel natural. Definitely looking for more books by this author.

# The Space Between Worlds was posted on Maddie_approves_book_reviews months ago. And it's certainly never to late to pick up a fun novel. lf your needing a break from romance this is one by author # Micaiah Johnson.
Thank you for the advance copy,
#Netgalley, # Micaiah Johnson, and Random House

The writing is consistent and the premise really intrigued me. I wanted to love this book, especially because of its diversity and representation in sci-fi.

Cara is such an interesting and strong character with so much potential to develop. I was absorbed by her character and wanted to know more about her backstory. Nik Nik also is a mysterious character ready to have his layers unpeeled. Having said that, the execution fell flat for me. The plot dragged in some parts and I kept expecting a "major" thing to happen to get me into the story. Unfortunately I DNFed @30%.

The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson, was a difficult read for the first third of the book, more character fiction than science fiction. But about midway through the story, it opens up into more plot based than character based, and the science fiction aspect takes off.

Overall, the book was enjoyable with a nasty, difficult-to-like protagonist. It is simply put, "good sci-fj."

For students, this is a great novel that blends multi-verses, queer identities, and mystery. An interesting dystopian tale to add to my classroom library. While I can see this working for some students, I also feel this novel was sort of a miss in some aspects. There was no clear defined villain, it was a bit info-dumpy, and could be construed as confusing for potentially younger readers in my classroom.

I personally enjoyed this book, and it helped that I listened to it on audio to help get me through the novel, but when I look at ARCs for my classroom, I have to take into account the age of my readers and their unique diversities. Overall, I will include this in my library and offer it as a choice for independent reading.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for this review... yes, I realize this was published in August 2020.

I'll be honest... this one took me a long time to get into initially. I kept getting bored and putting it down in the first 50 pages for reasons I can't quite pin down. Maybe just pandemic malaise?

HOWEVER. Once The Space Between Worlds starts going, it GOES, and you find yourself falling in love with the protagonist Cara. She is deeply flawed, and the stress of juggling so many identities is relatable - Cara is acutely aware of how dispensable she is to her [white, rich, literally walled in] employer, and no matter how much code-switching and attempting to "pass" Cara tries, she is stuck "between [the] worlds" of Wiley City and Ashtown. And of course, without spoilers, matters are further complicated and the plot starts twisting...

There's action, emotional gut punches, queer romance, and some fantastic wordsmithing by Ms. Johnson... without spoilers, one of the more gruesome multiverse traveling scenes took my breath away. The social criticism in this book is razor sharp, as sci-fi should be, and it was a joy to read.

Minus half a star because I predicted one of the primary "twists" a chapter or two early, and I maybe rolled my eyes a little when she was so flabbergasted, but it didn't deter much from the story.

So unfortunately I really didn't get on with this one!
The premise sounded so cool and unique and I was so excited to read about a book with parallel universes.
This just missed the mark with me on so many levels. I didn't care about the characters as I felt we only got to know them on a surface level and they seriously lacked development for me in the end. The story was also all over the place and I couldn't really follow what was going on half the time. I've read complex sci-fi before so it wasn't that I didn't understand, it's just that I didn't see what the point of the plot was.
Also it felt like a romance was just thrown in for the sake of it and I didn't feel like the characters had enough chemistry for me to get behind their relationship, add that to the complete lack of communication and it just made me not care.
I will say the writing was something I enjoyed and I could see the possibility of giving this author another chance. Also I did really like the technology behind the world jumping even if I felt like there were parts that didn't make sense sometimes.
In the end this was just a disappointing one for me!

Overall this book was entertaining. I honestly enjoyed the first half of the book more than I did the second half. Exploring the various universes and understanding how it all works grabbed my interest more than the conspiracies and danger did.

I am not sure if this is due to the fact that the twists and conspiracies were pretty self-evident or if it took away from the overall feel of the book. Needing to kill other competitors in the multi-verse did not make a lot of sense to me. I am not sure why this is important to why it matters to Earth 0. Outside of the fact that Earth 0 posed a

The Space Between Worlds is a fascinating concept book but for me failed in plot and development. I found it difficult to follow the characters and their motivations. The story line was confusing and I struggled to keep track of what was happening in the story. It did have some interesting twists and turns and did fall together towards the end of the book but took too long for the story to develop. I also found the characters generally uninteresting and their interactions excessively convoluted. It did keep me interested enough to finish the book but was overall a disappointing read for me.

This is a top notch book that is a must read for all fans of reading! It is incredibly well written and super engaging. I read this book in only a few sittings and every time I had to put it down I wanted to come back immediately.

This was a beautiful debut from Micaiah Johnnson, The Space Between Worlds, is an intriguing story that focuses on a young woman named Cara. The story explores the concept of a multiverse and traveling through space to other worlds. I applaud it’s world building, it’s pacing, political commentary, relevancy as well as the diverse characters.

The Space Between Worlds follows young Cara who lives and works on Earth Zero; on this Earth the multiverse is more than a comic book plot device, its a business. It’s Cara’s job to traverse to other worlds similar to Earth Zero and bring back information. Cara’s job is not an easy one to get, in order to travel to each world she has to die to get access it; on each Earth there is another version of ourselves and on hundreds of planets Cara has died, but because of her deaths she is valuable.

“Of the 380 Earths with which we can resonate, I’m dead in 372. No, 373 now. I’m not a scientist. I’m just what they’re stuck with. The higher-ups call us “traversers” on paper” (Johnson Loc 108).

The story is a vivid world of fiction that gives you so much to contemplate about; including but not limited to: class, race, appearance, and time. The Space Between Worlds makes you reflect on our society and who we are as humans and what we value. It has fire within every page, making for a very fast paced story with a resilient main character.

“How did you survive?” he says, at last. Because I don’t know how to die”
(Johnson Loc 2408).

I enjoyed Johnsons writing style a lot as she is able to provide readers with a detailed image of Cara’s world. I’m all about imagery when it comes to the books I read, unless I can vividly see the world your trying to get me to care about I wont be able to read your book. Johnson is able to depict the two neighboring cities, Wiley City and Ashtown, by providing Cara’s clothing and how she feels in both places. In both she tries to blend in; to blend in Wiley City she tries to wear the best clothes and dives herself into work. In Ashtown she wears clothes to help her stand the strong heat and light from the sun, but she still stands out as her clothes in comparison to the locals look too new.

Johnson’s imagery continues when she depicts Cara traveling to a new world. There is a spiritual aspect that goes against the science of space travel, but creates an experience for the reader and connects the reader to Cara as we experience her pain and “hallucinations”.

“ I know I am on my way by the sudden feeling of someone else’s breath on my neck. Scientists call the pressure along my skin resistance from imperfect frequencies, an atmospheric barrier I have to slide through before I can appear in another world. But Jean calls it Nyame’s muzzle, sniffing at me for worth like a wolf determining friend from threat”
(Johnson Loc 760).

These were my favorite parts, when Cara would travel, it was when I felt the most connected to her as we both didn’t know what to expect next!

Along with the imagery and world building there is the cool structure of the book. The structure is unique and very important to the storytelling aspect. There are 4 parts and within those four parts are chapters and each chapter breaks off into sections, almost like a diary without the dates. My favorite part of this structure is that with each new part there is a quote that alludes to what is to come. I also enjoyed how with each new part there is a quoted debate of sorts between the scientists and the spiritual.

“ When the multiverse was confirmed, the spiritual and the scientific communities both counted it as evidence of their validity.
The scientists said, Look, we told you there were parallel universes.
And the spiritual said, See, we’ve always known there was more than one life”
(Johnson Loc 65).

The only place where this story fell short me was the romance. It felt sidelined, in a way I understand why there was a romance but I also wish that it was just a bit more developed as I did not feel the connection between Cara and Dell. I found myself rooting for Nik Nik and Cara to get together!

Overall this was a beautiful debut from Micaiah Johnnson and I cannot wait to read more from this author!

I really enjoyed this book!

Just enough world-building of each traveled to the world that I knew what was going on but also didn't feel overwhelmed.

I cannot go into much detail on this one otherwise I will give way too much away.

Get your hands on this one if you like mind-bending, world-hoping, LGBTQA+ rep, and solid sci-fi!

Ok...I was very intrigued when reading the description of this book, then seeing all the award nominations coming out while I was reading. I've always liked the multiverse concept and this one sounded like it was going to be great. The beginning "world-building" was interesting but then it started to get flat for me after that. As much detail that was given and all the intricacies woven throughout, it just didn't deliver that 4-5 star roller-coaster I was expecting. I can see how many readers would like this a lot, just not exactly for me. 3 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the ARC.

This book just did not pull me in at alllllll. I feel like it lacked in a lot of places. The romance, the drama, the sci fi. I wanted more from all of it. I finished it because I’m stubborn and needed to see how it would play out and even the ending felt... meh.