I really enjoyed this book, but it was not quite what I expected.

It read like a young adult book, which I actually enjoy. However, I dont think that was the intention.

Also, there were a few passages that didn’t make sense, or there were rules of the world that I didn't quite understand.

All that being said, I enjoyed the world building, I related to the characters and I really wanted to know what happened next.

If you are reading this review, you are already interested in this book, so give it a try - it will take you on a fun ride!

For me, it was a slow start, so I kept putting it down. I wasn't connecting with the main character, Cara. In time, I did and regretted taking so long reading. This is an interesting and kind of scary at times, look into multiverses. I enjoyed the read and feel others who like science fiction will too.

Cara has walked among the stars. In her dystopian world, multiverse travel is a real, and Cara is the ideal traveler. That's because in order to travel to another world, the you on that world must be dead, and Cara is no longer living on 372 worlds. Taken from the wastelands of her home world, Cara is just grateful for the opportunity to rise above the low-class society she was born into. Working (and flirting) with her handler Dell, Cara is tasked with collecting data from the other worlds for the Eldridge Institute. Easy enough. That is until one of her doppelgängers is murdered. Thrown into a new world, Cara discovers long-buried secrets that make her question everything about her life and the work she does.

It's been awhile since I've read an adult sci-fi novel, and The Space Between Worlds did not disappoint! I can't recommend it enough. Featuring strong female characters, unexpected plot twists, and underlying social commentary, The Space Between Worlds is universe I'd gladly travel back to.

“The universe erases me, but it also remakes me again and again, so there must be something worthwhile in this image.”

“They say hunting monsters will turn you into one.”

“Alive doesn’t mean anything at all. Sometimes the path to an easy life makes you miserable.”

This year I’ve been trying to read a lot of escapist fiction. Between a cancer scare and the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve really needed to check out in the late nights and early mornings when I read. I’ve behind on a lot of my reading this year, too, but I think that’s to be expected in times like these! Nevertheless, I was so happy to pick up and read The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson. It was exactly the kind of read I needed this year.

The book is a haunting sci-fi thriller that has characters who are impossible to forget. The lead character is Cara, a rough and tumble woman who is clever, resourceful, and, above all, fearless. I don’t want to give away the brilliant plot, so I will be a bit cagey with my review. Cara claws her way out of the literal wastelands to become a traverser, someone who travels in time from one world to another. The book is set in the future where a megalomaniac engineer, Adam Bosch, has discovered that there are parallel worlds: 372 to be exact. Cara is one of the few traversers hired by Bosch’s company to extract information and data out of the other worlds for the benefit of her world.

But as readers will learn, Cara’s work comes at a cost.

Cara is scrappy and curious, determined to benefit and learn from her travels in other timelines despite corporate rules prohibiting such behavior. In all the worlds she has visited, her life is difficult. These worlds all have one thing in common: inequality. Cara is a member of the lower classes abandoned and discriminated against simply for being born outside the walls of the wealthy Wiley City, a city which also serves as a corporate haven for Bosch. Wiley City is for the elite, and the surrounding desert is for the rest of the world who toil under a constant threat of sexual and physical violence.

Cara desires to find a better way of life for herself and her family members who remain entangled in poverty and strife, but numerous obstacles stand in her way. Time is running out for Cara to figure out how to secure a safer future for her family; traversers are being replaced by a new technology that will remotely retrieve data from the other universes. Adam Bosch’s company also plans to monetize traversing, offering the opportunity to the wealthy few who seek to expand their fortune and fame by visiting other universes.

The odds are stacked against Cara, but she isn’t someone who cares about odds. Will she die trying to beat them?

This book is exciting, heartbreaking, and impossible to put down. If you love sci-fi, thrillers, brilliantly imagined worlds, and characters you won’t ever forget, this is absolutely your book. Definitely going to be a book I need to add to my permanent library!

Thank you to Random House Publishing, the author, Micaiah Johnson, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of The Space Between Worlds.

’Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun.’

THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS is a mind-bending Science Fiction novel I did not want to put down. Though the pacing, for me, lulls at times, it’s the characters and worlds Johnson created that kept me engaged throughout.

Cara and Dell-My Heart!

Highly Recommend!

Thank you, NetGalley and Del Rey Publishing, for loaning me an eBook of THE SPACE BETWEEN WORLDS in exchange for an honest review.

“Calgon take me away!” Am I dating myself irrevocably with that old commercial reference? Good fantasy or science fiction can take you away from everything. Open you up to a new world, different species, strange otherworldly situations. However, some of the best fantasy or sci-fi allows you to visit those other places and people, while simultaneously keeping you rooted in the world we are living in now. This book is a remarkable example of an intriguing story that takes place in a completely different kind of world, all the while not allowing the reader to completely look away from the parallels to the ugly side of life in this world we are currently living. Providing reminders of the things that need changing, and why if we don’t pay attention we put ourselves and others at risk.

The idea of being able to visit yourself in the multiverse is captivating, and this story explores all the what-if’s that would attend this ability. What is more active in our lives, nature or nurture? How does abuse, classism, external influences affect our development? How much can one choice made divert the fate of a person, and the people around them? How much does poverty warp people away from their true potential? Micaiah Johnson delves into all these questions, while skilfully not sacrificing forward movement and dynamic plot developments.

The book has a lot to say about how we treat one another, and the frustration/futility of living in a society that is increasingly corporatized and at the whim of powerful people who control all advancement. It’s a sobering, but also a thrilling book. If you enjoy good science fiction with a progressive point of view you will be pleased with The Space Between Worlds.

3.5⭐
I was engaged in the story and wanted to continue reading. I was trying to decide while reading if I liked it or not and why. I didn't know the MC. I didn't know much about the world we are in. I don't know much about the characters. I think that's what makes the story real. The MC doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know the worlds she goes to, and as it's repeated in the story, "can you ever really know someone?" You are immersed into what she feels and sees. For that, it does a great job. I didn't even realize what bothered me and then when I did, I understood why the author was doing it. I enjoyed the story and love how it wrapped up. I just found myself wanting to be finished, right before the climax.

Multiverse travel exists, but you can only go to a world where all of your previous selves have died. Cara has no talents other than she's dead in 372 worlds. Plucked from the wastelands, she now lives in the City and travels across the worlds, and in a few short years she'll be granted citizenship. Unless the machinations of her totally benevolent tech genius boss do something to mess with that plan...
I have seen two worlds and the space between.

Two star body, four star ending.

I've been having a hard time trying to wrap my thoughts about this book into sometime resembling words. This was the longest 330something pages I've ever read, but the last twenty percent or so flew by? I seriously thought it was an over 500 page novel, as the first half draaaaagged after a really promising first few chapters and a huge fucking twist thrown right into the beginning.

But Wiley City is bad on age anyway. They see a fourteen-year-old runner outside the wall and say, A suspicious man spotted near the border, but when a thirty-three-year-old Wileyite murders his girlfriend it's Good boy goes bad./blockquote>

I really loved what this book had to say about privilege and human worth, about tech genius and the evils of capitalism, about misconceptions and the different kinds of love, and how it explored the various ways a person's life can vary just based on circumstances and chance. How the main character is a Black, bisexual former sex worker in a world where workers are valued for keeping the peace and bringing civilization.

Nik Senior said that was true power. Not to kill a man, but to kill a man in front of his family and force them to agree you did not.


I loved quite a bit of the writing, which could turn from lyrical to horrifying on a dime, and always cut through with laser precision into the heart of an uneven, imbalanced world filled with varying levels of power. Because ultimately this was a book about power: the having, the gaining, the losing and the sacrificing.

But the pacing.

It was so uneven that I almost DNF'd at 50%.

I'm very happy that I didn't, as the ending was fantastic and I loved that it was bisexually sapphic and diverse and I loved the various iterations of Cara's sisters and enemies. Cara was a chameleon, always changing herself to survive to the circumstances, which is what made it so much sadder that her other selves had died so often on so many other worlds.

Can't say much more about what happens after the 50% mark other than I loved that it got political and brought Cara back to her world and the evil secrets lurking beneath its surface.

The only due powerful men recognize is a life—in service or in sacrifice.


I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3262082141

This is a parallel-worlds novel, where the protagonist is a “traverser” or world-walker, who can travel between 380-some versions of a blighted future Earth. Or rather, versions of the city-state of Wiley City, a wealthy enclave (think of a desert mini-Singapore) and its surrounding slum, Ashtown. That’s all we see of these future Earths, and a traverser can only world-walk to other Earths where her doppelgänger is dead. The publisher’s preview, at the top of this page, is what you should read first.

It’s good debut novel with first-novel rough spots. The premise didn’t convince me. The author shows us only one Earth, repeated hundreds of times, with small variations in its grim, post-apocalyptic setting. Nobody else has figured out a way out of this trap? And exactly the same people inhabit hundreds of alternate Earths? There aren’t any other inhabitable places on the whole planet? This used to be called out as the “It rained last Thursday on Algol-4” fallacy.

OK, every SF novel can have one impossible thing, and given her premise, Johnson draws an interesting (if grim) hypothetical future. The bit where Cara (the protag) takes over the identity of her dead double is clever, and confuses the hell out of everyone where she works, which was the idea. And the dirty politics, double and triple-crosses, murders, Mad Max killing-machines, revelations of evil and rot up to the very top of Earth-zero: all have a horrible fascination. Lord knows there’s precedent in our world for all the grim details. And the book does end on something of a hopeful note. It’s well-written, compulsively readable, and the weak spots were only obvious in retrospect.

Should you read it? Um. Do you like shaky stories of dystopias? I generally don’t, but I kept going on this one, even past the silly setup. I’m less happy now that I’ve had time to think about it. Lots of people liked the book more than I did, so it might be right for you — if you like that sort of thing. For me, it was flawed but worth reading. 3 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the review e-ARC.

I read a fair amount of science fiction. The idea of multiworlds and traveling to them is not unheard of. In fact, there have been many books, movies and even a television series using the concept. The conceit here is that you can only visit worlds where you aren't alive. Attempting to travel to a world where you are alive can cause your death.
Beyond the idea of multiworlds, the book is more a story of power and dynastic rule. Cara, our world traveler, orbits the power structure in most of these worlds. We see the action through her eyes. She tries to change things, but that may not be possible.
There is more that one thing that bothers me with the world building here. Multiworlds would be focused on one person, the person doing the traveling. It would be different for each traveler. But here, the same set of characters inhabit each of the worlds. There are no unique characters. If David exists in World 6, a version of David lived or lives in all the other worlds. He may be slightly older or younger, being a farmer or a trader or a henchman depending on who else might be alive or not. All the people on World 1, who are studying the other worlds, see exactly the same population. That feels wrong, or at least unlikely.
Other than that, It was an interesting adventure story with some sciency fiction trappings. I did have to block some of my questioning thoughts. Otherwise, It was fun.

A bit confusing in the beginning when the author was trying to establish characters and the plot, but she eventually got there and the tale became interesting. The premise that there are hundreds of worlds just like ours, with someone who is just like you living (on not) on them was pretty interesting.

Well, what do we have here? Multiverse travel, doppelgängers, a beautiful cover, and a morally ambiguous Black bisexual MC who walks the worlds. Sign. Me. Up.

The "space between worlds" is the void between Earths, but also the more symbolic gap between the walled "civilized" rich city and the "dirty" poor city outside the wall.

"I confused routine for reliability and reliability for safety."

I feel that so hard. This story was interesting, fast paced, and beautifully written. Of course it's not completely realistic (and feels like the rules "changed" at one point), but I don't have to understand the science to love my sci-fi dystopian novels. I highly recommend it and will definitely be watching for more from this debut author! Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for providing my digital copy.

I love the premise of this! The mulitverse theory is so interesting and the way the author explains it made a lot of sense to me. There are hundreds, if not more, of other universes with you in it. In some you're alive, but in others you're dead. You can only travel to universes where you've died, because to have two of you could mess up everything. I definitely liked that idea and the way the story played out was cool.

Cara had died in a lot of her universes: she's born to a poor mother who dates an abusive man, she gets involved with the wrong people, death just finds her. Now she's a traveler who journeys to other planets while working for the Eldridge Institute, but there's more going on than she knows.
Cara and Dell were super cute with their flirting and I was definitely rooting for them. I liked that their romance was there, but not the main focus of the story.

There were a couple places where I got confused or bored, but the author did a great job overall of explaining the concept. I liked that people were sometimes so similar to their other selves, yet one small thing can change everything. Nik and Adra especially had a lot of character change and I was really interested in how they chose to react to things.

This book was pretty cool and I enjoyed the themes of privilege, race, and knowing who you truly are.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Imagine you can traverse the multiverse, the infinite number of theoretical copies of our Universe made real, visiting alternate versions of the Earth you know. It must mean your horizons are expanded infinitely. Maybe you can only visit the limited number that are similar enough to your 'original' Earth to make travel there practical. Maybe a few hundred such Earths. That's still a wide canvas on which to tell a story. That's where this one starts. And it begins with some intrigue and interest.

But was disappointed. The story told here is not one that spans hundreds of worlds. It's a much smaller story. We follow a young traverser as she treads on familiar roads on a few of the Earths she visits. She encounters basically the same people and the same places, with just a few variations. The only civilization we are shown on all of these Earths is confined to a single familiar city, a nearby wilderness and an intervening country town, all ruled, for some reason, by a single despotic family. We see almost nothing about what is happening on the rest of the Earth. It's all very confining and all overly simple.

The characters and relationships, though simple and repetitive, are presented in a story that is intriguing and written well enough that I did follow through to the end. But I always felt that there story could have been so much more.

An amazing concept, great characters, and really intriguing plot, this ones not to be missed by anyone who appreciates science fiction. If I could change anything, I wish we’d gotten to know some of the side characters a bit better, but overall really enjoyed this one.

This was a very interesting sci fi plot. Cara lives in a time when multiverse travel is possible. However, in order to be able to travel this way, your counterpart in that specific world has to be dead. The more dead counterparts you have, the more valuable you are for the company and Cara is dead in in 372 worlds.

Even though the plot was super interesting and unique, the writing lacked in my opinion. There were great character development and even the non-main characters felt three dimensional. However, the overall writing did not flow much for me.

The Space Between Worlds is one of those books with such a fascinating premise that I couldn't help but immediately pick it up! I really loved how Johnson decided to explore this topic and that different plot developments that occurred throughout.

This story follows Cara as she traverses the multiverse for her work and encounters a myriad of new experiences. I really enjoyed following Cara on her journey and I think Johnson really did an excellent job of making her feel real and compelling to accompany in this story.

Micarah Johnson also has some truly wonderful writing! She really knows how to craft beautiful sentences and create a compelling narrative while also maintaining strong plot and pacing consistency. I definitely look forward to seeing what's next from Johnson!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Cara’s job is to traverse between dimensions where alternate Earths contain every possible outcome to collect data about their worlds. When something unexpected occurs and she learns secrets she isn’t supposed to know, things get interesting. This is the author’s debut novel and I am so anxious so see what she writes next. She does an amazing job with Worldbuilding and her characters have multiple layers. I adored seeing the various characters on their different worlds.

"Human beings are unknowable...Even if you hustle and make it in the rough, you have no idea if you would thrive or die in the light of real riches, if your cleverness would outlive your desperation". "In the Wiles, I pass for someone who has known stability and money her whole life. In Ashtown, I pass for someone who remembers how to pray and scrape. I am always wearing costumes but never just clothes".

Cara was a survivor, a product of the Rurals, the wasteland of Ashtown, a community outside the walls of the sheltered city of Wiley. The Wiley population was well fed, well clothed as compared to the often religious Ruralites who dressed in drab colorless garb. Life was a struggle. Dedication ceremonies honoring the warlord, NikNik, displaying gratitude and respect, were necessary for their very survival. Cara was NikNik's favorite girl. An opportunity arose...a chance at a new life...a reinvented version of herself... a traverser.

Adam Bosch, the founder of the Eldridge Institute had discovered a way to see into other universes, a way to retrieve intel from worlds with a slight frequency shift from that of Earth Zero. To collect this important data, "disposable people" were needed as traversers who were pulled from one world and forced into another for the purpose of data collection. Out of 380 compatible worlds, Cara was still alive on 8. She could only be sent to worlds where her doppelganger had died. "With the exception of some of the traversers, we are stunningly expendable". To survive means to strive for permanent citizenship in Wiley City. Having traversed more than any other Eldridge employee, she was well on her way to this goal.

Cara's "pulls" to different Earths were managed by her handler, Dell. Dell and Cara used wit and/or sarcasm in their communiques. Dell was a product of privilege. She lived in a high tower on the 80th floor. Cara's dwelling was below, on the 30th floor, where no sun was visible. Dell was dressed to the nines, Cara was simply attired. Tensions developed...feelings...unfulfilled desires.

"Every traverser has a more experienced mentor...I get the honor of having Jean Sanogo..." Papa Jean encouraged Cara to better herself by becoming an analyst... study world stats and company internal textbooks...stop traversing!

Cara's younger sibling Esther lived in Ashtown in the Rurals, an area all about "charity, piety and religion". Esther was warm and generous, all that was good. Could she become ruthless?

Filling out the main characters was NikNik, the warlord, son of a brutal emperor. NikNik had learned to kill from his father. "[NikNik] knows what it feels like when a powerful man takes the person you care about most in the world away...".

Seemingly, "The Space Between Worlds" by Micaiah Johnson is about multiverse collection for gain by Eldridge Industries, a soft sci-fi romp into the world of power and greed, however, it is so much more. This well written depiction of world building is a commentary on the lives of desert wasteland dwellers, inhabitants living outside the walled city of Wiley, a city of high towers and vibrant color as compared and contrasted with the colorless, gray shacks and huts with so called expendible people, often policed by runners. (enforcers of the elite). Micaiah Johnson's understated writing style describes the journey of a woman traversing the multiverse. A joy to behold. Highly recommended.

Thank you Random House Publishing-Ballantine, Del Rey and Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed the attention to characters that Micaiah Johnson displayed in the book. We need more voices like hers and diversity in books is important! As far as the story, it did start quite slow for me as I was looking for a bit more sci-fi world building but maybe this book is perfect for the YA audience and I just didn't fit that category.