'The Space Between Wolds' was a book that I requested on a whim after hearing another book reviewer friend was telling me about the story. The idea of parallel worlds was something that really interested me and in the end I have mixed feelings about this story.

Overall, this book was a very character driven story and I did love that. Cara is a very complex character from the beginning and as the story progresses we find out even more that makes her an interesting character to follow. Her interactions with the other characters were also very fun to follow.

However, since I was interested in this story because of the parallel worlds I wanted more of that. In the beginning of the story there was a lot to learn about the other Earths but as the story went on there was less to learn and somethings just didn't feel right based on the way most parallel worlds work. There are a fixed number of other Earths in this story and at no point did it feel like there were more. It seemed as if they had found them all and there was no more to find.

Even with the slight flaws that I felt existed in this story I still enjoyed this story and I think that you are a character driven reader you will enjoy this story overall.

The space between worlds is about multiverse traveling being a common occurrence where 382 parallel earths have been documented. If you travel on a universe where your doppelgänger is alive, you will die right there. There’s a risk of death every time you travel between the worlds. I don’t like sci-fi much but I love parallel universes and time travel, I find it such a cool concept.

Cara is one of those characters who are deeply flawed but you still like her. There’s a lot of fast paced action and even a few twists you don’t see coming. Some of it was a little confusing but for the most part, it’s easy to follow. I love the diversity but I do wish there were more of Dell and Cara, I thought there wasn’t enough interaction between them. In between the traveling and some romance, social and racial differences are also explored. Johnson is a great writer but some of them writing was very descriptive and eloquent while other times it came off as rushed so it didn't come together as cohesive as I would've liked.

I would definitely read more of Johnson in the future as I do enjoy her writing and storyline. This would be perfect for fans of Blake Crouch.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for the copy!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

While this was hard to get into at first, it ended up being good. I was confused with some parts during the first half of the book, but it got better after that.

I liked the uniqueness of multiple parallel worlds. The world traveling was interesting and Cara was likeable. The romance in it was meh though and the ending was sort of predictable. Overall. I give this book a 3.75 to 4 stars.

Man, this is such a cool book. I was immediately drawn in by Cara’s character, but then the plot kicked in and I was on the edge of my seat until the very end.

I loved how flawed and authentic Cara’s character was, as well as the interesting role her co-worker/love interest, Dell played. All of the characters were really compelling and added a lot to the story. Johnson also did such a great job creating this fascinating multiverse. It makes me want to read more books that center around parallel worlds/universes.

**Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!**

I love science fiction stories like this one. While I'm a huge fan of space operas and traveling to other planets and exploring the worlds there within, I love keeping it on planet Earth and diving into the fiction of science fiction. Everything from time travel to multiverse existence always excites me. The Space Between Worlds was definitely right up my alley.

I felt like there were multiple dichotomies happening at the same time here. First, there's Cara's journeys through the multiverses. As a person who only has 8 surviving dopplegangers in the 382 worlds that exist in this story, she's the one who can travel to most worlds without the concerns of Nyame and the space/time continuum destroying her. This was the first "between" place and Johnson does an incredible job with describing Cara's emotions as she travels. I love the idea of Nyame wrapping you in her blanket of multiverse and how each trip for Cara affects her emotionally.

Then there's the dichotomy of the two cities; Ashtown and Wiley City. Ashtown is filled with criminals and sex workers all trying to make money and survive with an Emperor who prefers pain and suffering and power over the lives of his subjects. Wiley City is a massive skyscraper where people work and live in harmony. For Cara, Ashtown was always home and for many of her dopplegangers, this is the only place that she knows. But then she's chosen to live in Wiley City and work her way to citizenship despite these towns bordering each other.

I love that there's this class dichotomy here. There's also the conversation of race as dark-skinned people mostly live in Ashtown and are subject to the brutal sun (this world's ozone barely protects humans) and light-skinned people live in Wiley City with filtered lights that protect their skin. I absolutely loved that Cara was the go-between in so many different ways. She's seen life of the uber wealthy. She's lived the life as a sex worker. She knows exactly how each world lives and can thus adjust herself accordingly. I love with this knowledge she's able to be the person to uncover the realities of these worlds and the people who run them.

Then there's the dichotomy of power. Two brothers who fight for seat of power, one using his mind to create his ideal universe and the other who inherits his throne and selfishly runs it with an overinflated ego. To be honest, there's so many different topics this book brings up in such a clever way. These dichotomies weren't even obvious to me until very close to the end of the book.

I was worried this would be another character-driven novel, but there were some excellent twists and surprises all throughout. I won't spoil them, but I will say the book wasn't boring. I also appreciated that the book didn't go too deeply into the quantum mechanics. While it's loosely based on the theory, it wasn't too overwhelming to make it difficult for the average reader to understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to get into science fiction, but doesn't know where to start.

I also loved the relationships Cara had with other characters. Johnson really dove into the complexity of these relationships and made her secondary characters feel just as important as Cara. First, there's Dell. Dell is Cara's "handler" when she travels through the multiverse. She's also had a massive crush on her ever since she met her, so there's a little "office romance," if you will. I also loved Cara's stepsister and stepbrother and even the religion that Esther is a big part of. I also found Cara's relationship with Nik Nik (the Emperor of Ashtown) to be quite dynamic. Honestly, I loved the dynamics of every relationship in this book.

However, I couldn't get into the writing style. Much of my criticism is about the way this story is written. The beginning of the story felt clunky while Johnson goes into details on how the world works. There were some instances where I wasn't sure which character was speaking. There were moments where I was confused by the actions the main character would take because I had no idea where they would lead. There was also the big question of "why?" any of this was happening. I wanted there to be more clarity so that I could understand the rest of the story.

I felt like in an effort to keep as much close to the chest, Johnson kept too much too close where almost every single page there's a big reveal. I like it when authors reveal villains to be one way or another, but I'm not a big fan when everything (even simple conversations) felt like they were surprises around every corner.

Finally, the ending wasn't my favorite. I liked where the story was going about halfway through and the character's decisions made sense, but it felt anti-climactic. I wanted there to be way more than we were given, but I also don't fault the author for ending the story the way they wanted.

Overall, this is a great story for anyone who's interested in science fiction and wants to read something that isn't too heavy on the theory and filled with those action packed surprises. It's a good starter for anyone new to the genre. However, the writing style and pacing of the story really threw me off and personally affected my enjoyment of the story. I'll definitely be reading more from Micaiah Johnson in the future.

I’d say this is a 3.5/5

This was a fun, fast read that was well paced and very enjoyable! I love a good multiverse/parallel world story, and this one definitely didn’t disappoint. The world was very interesting, but I did find some of the characters a bit flat.

This was a cleverly written science fiction novel about the multiverse and the ability to traverse between and interact with other versions of Earth. The setup was really interesting and the main character/narrator of Cara was great. I did find some of the world(s) building a little confusing as I had a hard time following along for a chunk of the book. Around halfway through, I finally had enough background in the world, the various factions and players to understand what was happening.

As I'm rereading what I have typed, this sounds like a bad review but I stuck with it and enjoyed the twists and turns at the end once Cara finally seems to feel more comfortable in her role. There were some plot lines (the gun one specifically) that didn't seem to fit very well but on the whole, this was a pretty good book with some very clever ideas that were mostly executed well.

This novel about multiple parallel worlds and travel among them is fascinating for the usual intriguing ideas about possibilities of many selves. It also is interesting for its character development and addressing issues such as domestic abuse, political and personal power, shame and regret, prejudice, and romance. At times confusing regarding the whys and wherefores of movement between worlds, for me my engagement in the plot carried me beyond questioning the technical parts of the story.

I really enjoyed this book. It is not what I was expecting. I am a huge dystopian novel fan, and to me, this leaned more towards sci-fi. It did remind me a little of avatar with the pods they went in to go to other worlds. I would give this 3.5 stars. I felt like the constant shift between worlds did get a little confusing at times especially since each character were themselves but different in each different world. I thought the ending seemed a little rushed, but overall ended well. There were a few surprises, but nothing like WOW. It was a slower paced read for me, but the author does have amazing writing skills. Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

I loved this book. It was probably one of my favorite of the year. Highly original and creative, I was completely engaged by this well written, fun, complex book. I can't wait to read what Micaiah Johnson writes next!

Is there going to be a sequel? Please tell me there’s going to be a sequel.

Cara is a traverser; someone who walks between the 382 worlds accesible to traveling. All she dreams of is finding her place in the city’s comfortable limits, a place her job will provide. But when that same job leaves Cara nearly dead and stranded on another world, she must reevaluate everything she thought she knew.

Let me start by saying I really did enjoy this book, but it left me confused in a few places. Maybe it’s the fact that I read it while in a reading slump, but there were a few passages that didn’t make sense, or rules/traditions of the world that didn’t have enough explanation.

Besides that, I thought that there were a lot of things that worked well. I really did like Cara’s character, and I liked Esther even more. I was hoping to see a little more of Cara and Dell’s relationship, and was a bit sad that everything was wrapped up so quickly. I think it felt abrupt because there were so many quests instead of one long one. I didn’t really know where the story was headed until it was over.

The strongest points of the book for me were the themes. I really enjoyed the exploration of healing, interconnectedness, and a kind of nature-versus-nurture dialogue (I know, the psych nerd in me is showing). It made me think of the butterfly effect, and the difference a life can make. And even though this is set in a futuristic earth, there were several heartbreaking parallels to the racism that is alive today in our own world.

I know there probably won’t be a sequel, but I really want there to be, if just to see more of Cara and Dell. Overall this was an enjoyable read, and I’m so happy to see another sci-fi book with LGBTQ+ and POC rep!

Rating: 3.5/5 rounded up to 4/5
Intended audience: Adult/New Adult
Content warnings: relationship violence, murder, drug abuse, (I feel like I’m forgetting some but this is what I remember!)

A Time Traveler in a Multiverse

In order to be a time traveler, you have to be dead in the worlds you go to so you don’t sustain serious injury. Cara is dead in 372 of the 380 worlds in the multiverse. She can go almost anywhere. Cara lives in a society that is highly structured. The city is a place of privilege. People live relatively luxurious lives. The city is surrounded by the barren wilderness Cara came from. Having come to the city to work, she now wants this life and plans to become a citizen.

Then the unforeseen happens. Clara goes to a world where she isn’t dead. The Clara in that world faked her own death and now the time traveler is in trouble.

This is a fascinating book. On one level it is an action packed adventure on the other it is a voyage of self-discovery for Cara. In traveling to different worlds she meets aspects of herself that make her think about who she truly is. In addition to that is the contrast between the life in the city and the life in the wilderness. What is it worth to work for all the glittery things in the city and what must you give up?

If you like adventure stories that also make you think, this is a good one.

I received this book from Penguin Random House for this review.

I really liked The Space Between Worlds! It was outside of my normal comfort zone and I got sucked in instantly. I will be buying this for the library for sure. Thank you!

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
The premise of this book is that there are over 300 multiverses of our world- near exact copies, with a variety of variations. We can visit these worlds- but only if that world’s version of “you” is dead. The “traversers”- therefore usually come from destitute circumstances, increases the odds that you are already dead- by poverty, war, abusive parents etc to make a great jumper.
I’m someone who always wonders- what If...What if I didnt move to AZ, what If I didnt meet that person who would introduce me to my future husband? What if I had gotten that other job? The jumpers get to see a lot of their what ifs as they explore a new world where they are dead.
The story is told by Carameta a traverser who in over 370 worlds has always lived a hard scrabble life ( ala Mad Max) that ended in her death from neglect or abuse from her prostitute mother, or her abusive gang leader boyfriend, or one of his minions. This versatility- they can send her almost anywhere to gather data on the “what ifs” of those other worlds, makes her very valuable to the company. Cara however is not what she appears and within the first few pages we learn that perhaps, she isn’t THE Cara of this world after all.

So many themes are packed into this story-race, privilege and poverty are woven through out. The traversers are “essential workers”, tolerated but not accepted. They are used until they are not needed. Cara is at risk from permanent downsizing as her job may soon be replaced by technology. Downsizing means moving from the beautiful safe city to either the “Rurals” where nothing grows, or even worse AshTown- a toxic wasteland
In this world like ours, how you are treated depends on where you were- where you live, your medical care and who you love. Love between two diffident socioeconomic classes is impossible, and abusive boyfriends are prevalent. There is even a wall to seperate the haves from the have nots.

A passage from the book that sums it up nicely-“If I figured anything out in these last six years, it is this: human beings are unknowable. You can never know a single person fully, not even yourself. Even if you think you know yourself in your safe glass castle, you don’t know yourself in the dirt. 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.”
Beautifully told, complex of character. Thought provoking read.

a smart sci-fi thriller with an incredible lead character. Cara made this book for me, she was so vibrant and distinct and her voice so compelling. I also really enjoyed how it explored the intersection of racism and classism. My only real complaint is that I would have preferred more setting descriptions and some more general information on background world building, but that definitely more personal preference as opposed to objective criticism.

I’m not a big consumer or purveyor of science fiction, but was excited to read this ARC as it’s a current BOTM pick and highly rated. This is a future-world dystopian story of a black, gay female “traverser” who professionally visits 381 other worlds in which her doppelgänger (usually on another path in life, often with a different name) no longer lives, to harvest data for Earth Zero as the latter is the only world to unlock the mysteries of the multiverse.

Yet I was a good 25% of the way through before I could get really invested in the story and in Cara (Lee? Menta? Lexx? - part of my early frustration was trying to figure out which doppelgänger was serving as the narrator and which world they were on). That said, the story was inventive and action was paced well. Even the slow burn queer romance was charming, though it felt very much a corollary to the main plot of Caralee shedding her deep psychological scars of growing up on the run as a feral child and later abused woman in the desert wastelands of “Ashtown” in search of a better life in the walled bubble of Wiley City. The transformative journey of Cara and her self-discovery of her tenacity, skills and worth, is the best thing to result from the book. There are still plenty of villains and plot twists to go around. The ending broke trend from the rest of the book and tied things up a bit too neatly (and unbelievably) for my tastes.

Rating this 3.5/5 stars, rounded up to 4, on its intriguing premise and the author’s very engaging writing style. But this is a polarizing book. For as many people who love it, I’ve seen many others also comment that it’s a difficult and complicated read.

Sincere thanks to #MicaiahJohnson, #NetGalley, #RandomHouse, and #Ballantine publishing for giving me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Multiple worlds/parallel universes are a staple in science fiction, and Micaiah Johnson does a nice job bringing some freshness to a well-worn concept in The Space Between Worlds, mostly thanks to some sharp characterization, intricate plotting, and stylish prose.

Cara is a “Traverser,” one who travels from her Earth (Earth Zero) to parallel Earths collecting data for the Eldridge Corporation whose leader, Adam Bosch, invented the technology. In the rules of the narrative, one can only travel to a parallel Earth if your double there has died: “It took a lot of smart people’s corpses before they learned that If you’re alive in the world you’re trying to enter, you get rejected. You’re an anomaly the universe won’t allow.” It didn’t take long for the corporation to realize “they needed trash people. Poor black and brown people,” those most likely to have died from violence or poverty in those alternate Earths. Of the 380 Earths that Earth Zero can “resonate” with, Cara is dead in 373 of them.

On Earth Zero, the society is split in two: those who live in Wiley City, a gleaming technological near-utopia with food, fresh air, amazing medicine, and 80-story buildings; and those who live outside the Wall in Ashtown, a desert wasteland where life is cheap and where the people are ruled over by a strongman “Emperor” named Nik Nik, a title inherited from his father who imposed a brutal peace after years of wars. Cara is an Ashtowner and though she lives in Wiley now due to her job, she still has family in Ashtown whom she visits regularly. The other Earths have very similar societal setups; in the numbering system used by Eldridge, lower-number Earths are most like Earth Zero and as the numbers climb the Earths become more and more different. Though never too different: “there are probably worlds where I am a plant or a dolphin or where I never drew breath at all. But we can’t see those. Eldridge’s machine can read and mimic only frequencies similar to our own.” The highest number Earth visited was 382, but an apparent nuclear war changed the “frequency” enough that it was lost to Traversers. Johnson also builds in a nice bit of myth/folklore amongst the Traversers in which the universe that accepts or reject them is personified in the form of a woman/goddess they call Nyame.

The world-building in The Space Between Worlds is maybe a little thin in some ways; there’s very little sense for instance of what is happening beyond Wiley and Ashtown. But that was fine with me. We get enough of those two places and really that’s all we need; I never felt the lack of big-picture details. My favorite aspect of the world creation was how Johnson subtly and deftly peeled away layers for us, giving us frequent, small tidbits of information of how Wiley and Ashtown work as the reader moves through the work rather than employing a few large infodumps. Johnson shows a skillful and restrained hand in detailing this new world for the reader.

That same skill presents itself in Cara’s characterization. Her past as an Ashtowner now living in Wiley but moving between the two is a nice echo of the “multiple universes” concept (and also fits neatly into the title). She’s a richly drawn and complex character, not always likable thanks to a harshness and coldness one can assume comes from her growing up in a hellhole. She’s also protects herself viciously from the potential of emotional harm, slamming down walls and torching bridges before people can get too close. As with the world of Earth Zero though, what we see early on is only a small piece of the whole, and Johnson does the same bit of gradual revelation with Cara as he does with the world, allowing her to grow on the reader as we spend more time with her. She’s also a dynamic character, both willing to cast as sharply critical eye on herself and also change as that eye reveals some things she’d prefer were not true about herself. Her quasi-relationship with Dell is a little hit or miss in its presentation, but also adds some complexity to both character and story, as well as some moving moments.

Other characters vary in their depth, more as a result of so much going on in not a lot of pages (relative to, say, the usual fantasy tome) than due to poor writing. Dell was one of those characters who suffered for me, which is why the relationship storyline wasn’t as strong as I would have liked. Two characters who stood out were Cara’s sister Esther and Cara’s mentor Jean. Another is a different-Earth Nik Nik, mostly in his contrast to Cara’s Nik Nik version. That’s always part of the fun of an alternate world narrative—the multiple versions of selves, and Johnson creates a wonderful spectrum of doppelgängers, whether its various Nik Niks or Esthers or even Caras, each subtly different from other versions of that same characters we’ve already met or heard of.

The plot is engaging enough, focusing on a discovery Cara makes that changes her view of how things work at the corporation and also has the potential to change their entire world. There are a number of twists and turns, some nice foreshadowing, some tense moments. Best of all, and what separates The Space Between Worlds also serves as a good vehicle for the weighty themes Johnson introduces: issues of class, race, privilege, equity, exploitation. You can see these themes baked right into the premise, this idea that Traversers are chosen from the “trash people” because their circumstances mean they die so much more often than those lucky enough to be born into the city. Or how part of why the corporation sends Traversers into other Earths is to take resources from them, which Cara tells us Eldridge’s opponents see as “a new colonialism, and they’re not wrong.” It’s impossible to read a passage like “Wiley City . . . sees a fourteen-year-old runner outside the wall and says a suspicious man spotted near the border, but when a thirty-three-year-old Wileyrite murders his girlfriend it’s Good boy goes bad” and think one is reading science fiction, let alone allegedly “escapist” fiction.

Johnson’s prose is always clear and fluid, but often rises above that into the lyrical and sometimes startling, pushing me to write “nice” multiple times next to lines or passages I admired. Here’s one of my favorites:

The universe is brimming with stars and life, but there is a section of sky that is utterly dead and empty. They call it a cold spot, a supervoid, and they say it got that way because two parallel universes got to close to touching. That’s us. That’s me and Dell . . . if I ever get too close, The Eridanus Void opens between us. We both withdraw and leave a cold dark in the space we almost touched that three suns couldn’t light.

The Space Between Worlds has strong characters, an intriguing premise and interesting world, all conveyed via a stylish, vibrant prose. Which makes it an easy recommendation.

4.5

Let me start off by saying, this kind of story is a little out of my reading comfort zone, but based on the synopsis, I knew I was going to love this book. Unfortunately, I was sadly disappointed and really didn't...

The beginning was was the most interesting. We get to know a bit about our main character Cara, her life and a little about her family and how she grew up. It also gave us the most world building, speaking of different religions and the people living in poverty in the spaces between the wealthy.

The rest of the book for me was dry and boring. The book just slumps around halfway. I kept having to make myself pick it back up and I really didn't want to. Don't get me wrong, some of it was ok and I kept trying to hold onto that, but though the writing was well done, it was also not at all exctiging. It's hard to explain... I felt like I was just being talked at, but not really experiencing the story.

It was interesting seeing the characters playing different roles from what we are originally told about them. I wish that had been enough to carry the story, but I needed more. The characters themselves needed more to them, I felt like they were a bit under developed.

There are also a lot of plot holes and times where the story is contardictory, almost like the author either forgot what they had written before, or just decided to change the narrative. Which in some cases works, but in a multiverse, it felt like the author didn't know where they were going with the story or how to fit it all together. There weren't a lot of rules, but the ones they had were all thrown out the window.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ballentine Books for a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review

The Space Between Worlds follows Cara, who out of the 380 worlds that Earth Zero can resonate with, she is alive on only 8. Cara works for a company that specializes in gathering intel about these universes. However, when one of her counterparts is murdered under mysterious circumstances, secrets about herself and the multiverse are revealed that may change the course of her destiny.

“Sometimes to kill a dragon, you have to remember that you breathe fire too. This isn’t a becoming; it’s a revealing. I’ve been a monster all along.”

You know how some books are slow to get into and make you feel like your eyeballs are going to fall out? Yeah well, this wasn’t one of them. The author wove the story together beautifully and pulled me in from the first sentence. There were some wonderful twists I didn’t see coming, and I count myself as a good seer of future twists.

This was a light, quick read. There are some dark themes which some may be uncomfortable reading, but I wasn’t clutching my pearls or stressing to the point where I can’t eat— no really, it’s happened before. It didn’t pull me in as much as I hoped but it was certainly fun to read. The ending made the story better for me; the twists I didn’t see coming and happiness the main character was able to find.

I want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine - Del Rey for an eARC