3.5 stars, rounded up for originality.

This is an unique book about a girl who steals her way into life as a world traverser, moving between world in the multiverse in some sort of post-apocalyptic situation. I enjoyed the set up and complexity of the world building, but felt a little dragged down in some of the details. I feel like this might make a good series where some of the storylines had a little more time to develop that was possible in one novel. Good read for those looking for some diversity in their sci-fi as well as a Mad Max style world.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Imagine you, but on a different Earth… one perhaps not so very much changed, just not quite the same. Now, imagine you in a dozen such worlds. In a hundred. Or, in The Space Between Worlds (Micaiah Johnson’s dazzling debut), 382 different versions of you, on 382 different Earths.
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In a not-so-distant, dystopian future, traveling within the multiverse is possible—not for the average Joe, mind you, being crazy-expensive—but doable. [Let’s back up for a sec, though, to break down “multiverse”: consider our universe, then assume that—since space is literally infinite—multiple universes essentially identical to ours probably exist within that vast expanse, including multiple earths populated by our doppelgängers… who may—or may not—behave as we do, given the vagaries of human decision-making, behavior, and whatnot. Yeah?]

Anyway, back to traversing the multiverse. For the few people allowed to do so, it’s a job: go to whatever Earth the assignment calls for, download a record of whatever has transpired since the last visit, note any major changes, then hightail it back to the travel pod to be whooshed home again.

The catch? Travel is only possible to other ‘verses where the other “you” has already died; if anyone attempts—whether accidentally (monumental oops), or on purpose (heaven forbid)—to travel where their counterpart still exists, one of the two WILL. DIE. (Space, it seems, really frowns on two versions of anything occupying the same place at the same time.)

That brings us to our hero, Cara. After a hardscrabble upbringing in a dirt-poor town on the outskirts of wealthy Wiley City, Cara was recruited by the prestigious Eldridge Institute to join their team of travelers. Why? Because it turns out more versions of Cara are dead on those 382 other Earths than any other person… rendering her able to travel more places than anyone else. So, while she’ll never “fit in” among the natives of the elite Wiley City—being the dark-skinned, badass, hard-drinking, death-metal-meets-goth traveler that she is (and thus nothing like the pale, proper, white-clothed, elitists inhabiting said city)—she gets to enjoy a certain freedom (and definitely, a much nicer place to live and better food to eat) by dint of her unique position, to the point that she’s working toward one day acquiring permanent citizenship there.

It all seems within her grasp… until the trip that changes everything. Visiting an Earth for the first time—one in which that version of her has only just recently died—she uncovers a very big secret… one that reaches through all the planes of space, and threatens to rip the multiverse apart. And, lucky Cara, she’s also the only one who might be able to stop that from happening.
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I’m just gonna put this out there: The Space Between Worlds is unequivocally going to tie for my favorite-book-of-2020. Really, this one is THAT. GOOD.

First, it’s a GREAT yarn, full of fantastic world-building, a small cast of genuinely engaging characters, and a compelling story that never drags. And, if that was all it were, it’d be a fine sci-fi story.

That’s really only sort of scratching the surface, though, because The Space Between Worlds also seamlessly incorporates SO MANY aspects of humanity, and confronts societal injustices head on; race relations, sexual orientation, gender identity, poverty, elitism, politics, megalomania, religion, family, the powers (and faces) of love (and the list goes on)… all are wound inextricably through every page, and every breath.

The Space Between Worlds—much like its hero, Cara—doesn’t pull its punches… in the very best way possible. This is sci-fi with a statement to make, and I loved every single bit of it. I think you will, too.
~GlamKitty

(This is an easy recommendation for sci-fi, urban fantasy, dystopian, and psychological thriller fans.)

Micaiah Johnson created a world that was complex and well laid out in front of the reader. It was easy to understand the multiple levels of the universe and the intricacies lent themselves to many twists and turns.

Her writing was raw and allowed for characters with deep emotions. I loved finding out about the other lives of the characters in other worlds and how they differed and were similar to the main characters.

She had so many twists and turns that kept me engaged and invested throughout the entire read. These twists were so unexpected and perfectly balanced to the book as a whole.

The Space Between Worlds is a great science fiction novel that is fun to read and think about for many days after finishing. You don't want to miss this debut on your shelves.

I adored this book. The main character is great. The side characters are great (I LOVED Mr. Cheeks and Esther.) I love how important sisters and siblings are, which I think are the greatest relationships imo. The quote "Because that's what a sister is: a piece of yourself you can finally love, because it's in someone else" *clutches heart* SO GOOD.

I am such a sucker for parallel universes. You'd think that a book with endless possibilities and choices would freak me out, since they do in real life, but it's weirdly soothing. Probably because while certain outcomes aren't true in each universe, they are true in some so everything is happening...if that makes sense?

The way the author writes about overcoming trauma and how it is deeply embedded in us was *chef's kiss.* I can already see some reviews harping on "so bad things happen just to make someone strong" or "abuse doesn't always have to be a trope for character development" but sometimes that's how life is. Bad shit happens but there is always hope.

The Space Between Worlds is a science fiction debut and I was very pumped to read it. It's marketed as a scifi-thriller that had multiverses and traveling between them which spikes my interest level to max.

So it does have some thrillery bits that show up in the second half but for me, this is less so much thriller and much more about everything from classism and poverty to identity and the recovery from trauma and family. It's interesting and really well executed. It's a novel that has a lot of layers and complexity to it.

So this book follows a character named Cara and she is a traverser. She's an employed by this particular company to basically travel to parallel versions of Earth so she lives on Earth zero and there are a multitude of versions of Earth that are very much like our own but slightly different so her job is to collect data on various different things from stocks and fiances or whatever the world has to offer that could help Earth zero. So this leads her to being a very valuable employee because the catch of traversing is you can die at any moment.

So the world building really complements the whole idea of identity. Cara being from a very poor background. The amount of concepts that were newer to me in this book is vast. Many moments have stuck out to me and I think this an inversion of eveything I really know about scifi. Highly recommend.

3.5 stars. The story was intriguing and a relatively fast read, I only wish the characters were deeper. The reader is pulled in and gets a surface level view of the characters but is never pulled in and connected to them. There are several story lines I wish had been further developed. I wanted the raw emotion and pain. I wanted to feel like Cara. Instead it was like I was watching this story unfold through water.

The story held lots of promise, and I still think it is a good read, but I think it could have delivered more to the audience with deeper connections and weaving.

Outstanding work of science fiction that breaks away from convention. An innovative spin on time travel and alternate worlds. Well written and a page turner. Excellent world building and character development. This book will be a great pick for long time fans of sci fi and beginners. Thank you NetGalley fot allowing me to review this book

Super cool debut about multiverse travel, with an intriguing and unique way of storytelling and beautiful writing.
Also, sapphics!

Content warnings include: graphic injury and death, violence, trauma, graphic mentions of intimate partner violence, class discrimination; mentions of child death and abuse, death of parents, miscarriage, religion, queerphobia.

The futuristic, vaguely dystopian setting with the rich living in a walled-in city and the poor living around in the wastelands worked perfeclty in concert with the multiverse travel, which only works when the travelling person's doppelgänger in the destination world is dead - meaning people growing up in higher risk situations make for better travellers, since they are more likely to be dead in other worlds. But of course it's the rich people with the safe, harboured childhoods that invented and profit off of multiverse travel, leaving the actual multiverse traversal to people from the wastelands. That's how Cara, the protagonist, got her job.

I liked Cara as a protagonist. She was pragmatic, focussing on survival, more from her upbringing than anything else, but cared nevertheless. She's black and bisexual. I loved reading from her POV. Combining her personality with the multiverse travel setting was great, because for her it really is just a job, something ordinary and barely worth mentioning.
That is, until one pull goes wrong...

What made the book so unique and intrigung wasn't so much the setting, but other things.
Part of it was the writing. It was great and atmospheric, and something about the selection and combination of words just took my breath away again and again. I particularly enjoyed the short science VS religion parts at the beginning of each of the four acts.
Another was the way the worldbuilding was established. There isn't much outright exposition. Instead if slowly unfolds over the course of the story, each chapter giving some more information, over time revealing how rich and detailled the setting truly is. The runners, the parades, the rurals, the House, the Emperors, the history... there was so much, and I bet on rereading there will be so much more details I'll find.

The story is told in four parts, which are thematically separate yet work together coherently and seamlessly.
If I look at the bare bones of the story, the plot, I wouldn't say it's anything particularly special. Yet the way it was executed, the choice of focus and characters set it apart from anything I've read before, and it was brilliant. I was almost puzzled at times as I tried to figure out where things were headed, which of the information delivered or characters introduced were imporant, but in the best possible way. It never headed in the direction I thought they would, but also simply was so unknowable that I never knew what to anticipate next.

Another thing I that was very different from what I expected was the romance. Dell is Japanese and sapphic, and one of Cara's closest coworkers. She's there from the very start and has worked with Cara for a long time, and Cara's had a crush on her from the very beginning. Despite her attraction being present in every interaction of the two, the romance is almost secondary. A lot of the other side characters have similarly important, if not more important roles to the plot, and at times I even wondered if there wasn't another love interest. I liked that romantic attraction didn't take the front seat over any other kind of relationship, as it does in a lot of books with romantic subplots.
Another aspect to this was that while Dell is very integral to the plot, and very present in expected and unexpected parts of it, she also is very definitely other. She's from an old money family, having lived in the rich city for generations. The class difference is a big theme in her an Cara's relationship, as well as privilege, colorism, and immigration.

Finer nuances of plot, worldbuilding, characters and other dynamics aside, I also simply enjoyed the multiverse stuff immensely. I loved meeting the same set of characters again and again, finding differences and similarities, parallels and paradoxes.

Overall a stunning debut that kept surprising me with the unexpected, and I'll be on the lookout for the author's future releases.

Space Between Worlds - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I won the @netgalley jackpot for August releases by getting approved for this one. Thank you for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Super quick synopsis: Welcome to a world where there is multiverse travel on Planet Earth, otherwise known as Earth 0. Cara can only travel to earths where she's already died, and luckily (unluckily?) for her, she's dead on most of the known 300+ earths. When she visits another earth, she uncovers a secret about her planet that jeopardizes not only travel to other planets, but her entire multiverse...

Overall: Recommend! I definitely stepped out of my comfort zone with this book, and I'm so glad I did! Cara's character was well- developed and a total badass, persevering after so many traumas in her past. It's super impressive that this is a debut novel - the author created multiple worlds with layered characters and different personalities on each planet. At one point though, I did start to have a hard time remembering all of the characters on earth 175, and how they were the same or different from their doppelgangers on earth 0.

I initially chose to read this book because I thought the cover was amazing (I still think so). To me, the story was just as good. I kind of expected more straightforward YA, but I wouldn't really call this book YA anyway. The story took so many twists and turns that I didn't see coming and yet they made perfect sense. The concept was interesting and carried off well - travelers are sent to parallel universes and wealth and information is returned. But what I really liked was the characters and the story - it was totally engrossing to me and made me resent all the real life stuff I had to take time for.

On Earth, scientists have discovered an infinite number of parallel worlds. When they discover a way to cross The Space Between Worlds, they send volunteers to Earths that are the most similar to our Earth—now named Earth 0. Those volunteers come back broken and soon die. Eventually, they discover that traversers between worlds cannot go to a world on which their doppelganger is still alive. They need to find Earth 0 residents that are unlucky enough to be dead on most other worlds. They need to find Cara.

Cara is a scrappy and ambitious girl from the bad side of town. Her poverty-stricken lifestyle has killed her in 373 of the 380 worlds that Earth 0 residents can visit. But she wants to be more than just a traverser, she wants to be a higher-paid analyst—despite her lack of formal education. Cara does have street smarts. She has already discovered that the owner of the company that employs her is not just acquiring scientific data during each trip. He is also getting dark data about the future. Who wouldn’t be rich if they knew tomorrow’s stock market prices and Super Bowl winners in advance?

I love the world-building within this book. There isn’t a lot of fluff about how the buildings or residents look that drag down a lot of science fiction books for me. This book is about ideas rather than appearances.

Cara is an intriguing character. She definitely lives on the shady side of the street. But, perhaps that is why she has beat the odds to survive on Earth 0. The twists begin when she discovers something unusual on one of the Earths she is visiting. From then on, the book is an enthralling story you won’t want to put down. The Space Between Worlds is not only a great choice for science fiction readers but also thriller readers looking for a unique setting and characters. 4 stars!

Thanks to Del Rey and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Wow. This book was a fantastic debut. It was layered with complex characters and razor sharp twists and turns. I felt myself get a little lost at times but I am thinking that was more me than anything. I will absolutely reread this book and definitely recommend it.

Full review on www.readandwander.com by 1 Sept

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
Pub Date 08/04/2020
Science Fiction

This is a complex and unique story about a girl named Cara who is a cross- dimensional traveler. It is beautifully written Syfy, dark and twisty. A fantastic debut novel takes a look at privilege, class and belonging. It has time travel, parallel universes, alternate realities and so much more.
Thank Netgalley for a free copy to review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

An amazing work of science fiction for all the right reasons. Micaiah Johnson builds unlimited worlds in this work, not the least of which is Earth in the not-so-distant, and not-at-all-rosy future. The great divide between classes, the environmental toll on the world around us, and the rich cultures in both the wealthy and poor sides of society are brilliantly depicted. The religious influence, even through the seemingly inevitable merging of all faiths into one with so much richness, is compelling. And the technology that anchors the plot is both attainable and utterly fantastic.

So many well-drawn characters whose complexity is obvious, even when they act predictably. LGBTQ representation seamlessly embedded (as it is in life). Tension and dynamics that keep you guessing, and hoping.

I left with so many questions and, though that was clearly intentional, I needed more answers. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

This story is parallel worlds done right. The closest comparison I have is Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, and I loved that too! I dislike the J.J. Abrams-y use of parallel worlds as a "twist" or an "easy" solution to a sci-fi mystery. This book starts off by showing-and-telling you the hows and whys of parallel world traveling (or traversing) without getting too philosophical or too condescending. Cara is a straightforward, honest narrator and I liked her immediately despite her hardness.

The other characters are complex and fascinating, and the interactions between Cara and the various people she meets across several worlds are exceptionally well written. There are a few moments of "no, don't do that!" and inner cringing at her risky actions, but it only adds to the tension and her vulnerability.

The attention to detail is perfect, especially when Cara is trying to find where exactly she fits in. I rooted for her the whole time, and was completely sucked into the vivid depictions of Wiley City and Ashtown - all of them! I received a copy of this ebook from NetGalley and then also happened to choose it as my Book of the Month, and I am so glad I have a physical copy to keep around to reread!

One of my favorite things about writing for this site is the Dark Horse Initiative. One of the best choices we made this year was to split it into halves to discover even more new authors. It forces me to look for books that interest me but I might hesitate to pick up otherwise. The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson, is the ideal dark horse. It’s exactly what you want in a debut novel: new ideas. It’s an engaging examination of identity that is full of grit and character while showing an incredible amount of promise for Micaiah Johnson beyond her debut. It has a couple of issues that are noticeable in the beginning of the book, but are improved upon as the book continues giving me faith that Johnson will only improve as she writes more books in the future.

In Johnson’s far future setting, people are able to traverse between worlds, three hundred and seventy two of them to be exact. Through the miracle of quantum physics, humanity has found other instances of Earth that are similar enough that information about the future can be gleaned by travelling to them and bringing back the necessary data. While this seems like a boon, not all is well for the world Caralee inhabits. Caralee is a woman able to traverse between worlds, not because she’s particularly skilled, but because she happens to be dead in most of the other worlds. In order to hop to a parallel world, a version of you can’t currently exist in that reality. There are only eight other versions of herself still alive, and another one of them has just died. So Enbridge, the company conducting these excursions, wants to send her there to collect some data, and she can’t help but look into why she may have been killed.

First off, Johnson does an excellent job of keeping the story tightly focused and evenly paced to make sure the reader is hooked to the page. She clearly defines the limits of the multiverse and people’s abilities to travel fairly quickly so that it doesn’t bog down the later thriller- and action-oriented sections. I do want to point out that the beginning has a lot more telling than showing, but it tapers off pretty quickly. It’s not that the telling was uninteresting (in fact, it was extremely compelling), it just created a weird dissonance between the world and Caralee that made me want to know more about the world at large, than Caralee as a person. However, this does get resolved over time as Caralee’s character is brought into sharper focus. I was little concerned that my interest in the wider system would become a frustration that pulled me from Caralee, but Johnson sewed character focused seeds that made her story more interesting and coherent within the world.

Johnson’s ability to write characters is astounding. There is a lot to like about this book, but something I absolutely loved was reading from Caralee’s perspective. Luckily for me, the entire book is from her point of view. It really helps that she’s such a well thought through character that feels complete in a writing sense, but incomplete in the human sense. She has this world-weary, cynical know-it-all feeling to her that helps her survive, but can sometimes blind her to things right in front of her. Caralee is the perfect lens through which the reader can view the issues of identity that book so heavily grapples with. Through Caralee, and the people who inhabit her admittedly few lives, the reader is treated to examinations of who people might innately be. I particularly enjoyed the fact that Caralee herself was not particularly curious about the nature of the multiverse as her detachment further steeped her in the morass of her own actions. She had a grim acceptance that the others may die, but she had the will to survive, regardless of cost. It made watching her grow and develop that much more satisfying.

Another aspect of the book that really hammered home everything I mentioned above is Johnson’s prose. Her writing is brash, unapologetic, and fierce. There is an undercurrent of anger to Caralee’s practicality as she narrates her life and describes the life of a traverser. The idea that the poor, brown, and black folks are the ones who are able to traverse due to their expectancy to be dead in other worlds clearly affects her, but she tries to hide it from herself by focusing so much on her own survival. Johnson’s writing feels so intentional and sometimes feels as if Caralee is talking to herself, or another version of herself, defending every one of her actions. It makes her feel vulnerable and as if there is a cognitive dissonance to how she has lived her life until this point. It’s fantastic and really pulled me into her life in a way I was not expecting.

Overall, The Space Between Worlds is an incredible debut. It’s tightly focused and paced like a rocket launch. The world is interesting even though some aspects felt for a while as if they didn’t fit into the plot. Caralee’s voice is so incredibly strong that her development feels earned and true. The writing feels so deliberate and is tinged with a slight animosity, but not so much you’re pushed away from the story, just enough to make you feel as Caralee does. I definitely recommend you grab a copy of this book, and I can’t wait to read more from Micaiah Johnson.

Rating: The Space Between Worlds - 8.5/10
-Alex

Sorry for getting to this late! A really fun alternate dimension story, usually I don't find them too compelling but I was hooked solidly on this.

Dystopian science fiction is not always my thing. I always find the holes, the inconsistencies. They exist here, too, as they would in any inter-dimensional travel. I'm not really reviewing that because to read a book like this you have to suspend those things. Instead I'm reviewing how the story was handled. In the future, the world is pretty bad in most ways. I believe the story is set in what is now Ghana, but I may be reading too much into it. Regardless, the future is hot and bleak and the difference between the haves and the have-nots is so big that they don't really even speak the same language.

One dimension, Earth 0, has discovered how to see and interact with other dimensions. There are requirements. They can only see into Earths that are similar to their own. So while there are endless dimensions, they can only travel to just under 400 of them. Another requirement is that in order to travel to another Earth, you can not be alive on that Earth. The universe rejects that duplicity. So the most valuable traveler, or traversers, are those with the highest likelihood of mortality on as many Earths as possible. That left the poor and the people of color. The scientists themselves mostly come from the elite and the haves, so they must depend on the have-nots more and more. The racism and classism is clear throughout.

Because of this, the title refers to both the space between worlds Cara travels and the space between her 2 worlds, the hot and dirty wasteland she comes from and the clean, walled city she is brought to. The plot moves through different worlds and different versions of the same people until Cara starts to wonder why she was chosen.

I'd highly recommend to anyone who likes sci-fi. Thanks to Netgalley and Micah Johnson for the Arc of this book.

This was a solid book! Extremely enjoyable and I loved all the twists and turns, plus there was just enough romance but nothing super heavy.

All of the characters have a sense of grey morality, and I love that about them. Everyone felt human, none too good or too evil.

I’m not usually into Sci-fi, but ‘The Space Between Worlds’ had me hooked from the beginning & I couldn’t put it down. The book follows Cara, a “Traverser” who’s main value to her employer is that she’s dead on most other worlds, and therefor can travel freely between worlds to gather intel in a ‘1984’ style dystopian universe. The world building, action, & social commentary on identity and privilege were expertly done. It brought a fun, fresh take to the dystopian YA novel and I loved the “Mad Max” vibes of the different worlds. Special thanks for the eARC provided by NetGalley & Random House Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review!