I enjoyed this story with a focus on family and emotion using time travel as a device and an allegory for a teen with a disability and how they process that. Not my normal fare, but and enjoyable read that kept me turning the pages!

4.5
I was so impressed with this book. It had so much heart, emotion and was incredibly written. Aimee is a diverse character that you could understand, appreciate and root for. Her feelings of loneliness and isolation were described so fully and much more than the ‘YA’ genre I felt. The time travel was realistic, but there were some minor parts I questioned.

The twists and turns kept me really engaged. I thought this was super fast paced and really easy to read. I can’t wait to check out more from Sarah Suk,

I’m still processing this book. If you like YA, if you like emotional stories, if you like stories about family, if you like stories about learning how to accept who you are - you will like this book.

The main character, Aimee, has a disability called “STWS” or sensory time warp syndrome. It is a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her father often just pushes her worries, fear, and anxiety about her condition aside, saying that she’ll “grow out of it.”

Aimee is constantly feeling isolated, has high anxiety and is depressed. She also is desperately searching for more information about her condition.

Sarah Suk wrote an amazing and emotional story that I connected and related to almost immediately. I loved that Aimee learned how to manage her condition or “disability” as well as the importance of being present, to be here now. Aimee had a big character growth in learning how to have the hard discussions with her father and in finding out the truth of her mother’s disappearance.

Not only was her main characters well written, but Suk also didn’t just add in characters to “forget” about them later - and I really liked the best friend, Nikita.

There is a subplot of a sweet romance that you can watch spark into life in the book, but it is very light.

Overall, this book allowed for a connection for anyone who has felt isolated with a disability, a desire to improve familial bonds and having the hard discussions. But mostly, this book is about self identity/acceptance. I’ll be looking forward to reading more of Sarah Suk.

Suk created an incredible, compelling narrative in this slightly different reality that includes an unexplained syndrome which causes people to travel back in time to their memories. Aimee, the main character, suffers from this but also has real life issues like a complicated relationship with her father made much more difficult after her mother leaves the family behind. Suk incorporates this syndrome seamlessly into Aimee's coming of age and the restoration of her relationship with her father.

This is a lovely and heartfelt YA story of family and blossoming new love that isn't too heavy-handed but is definitely sweet and contemplative. The use of Aimee's "medical condition" reminded me of the treatment of time travel in the Time Traveler's Wife, where it wasn't "fun" but was actually a chronic illness that severely interrupted daily living. I appreciated that use of the magical realism and of the realistic and gut-wrenching development of the relationship between Aimee and her father. The reader genuinely doesn't know what Aimee is going to find, so it's exciting and nerve-wracking to go on this journey of family and personal discovery with her.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I really enjoyed reading The Space Between Here and Now even though I did not quite get to finish it. I was really hooked by the plot of the novel and rooting for the main character to find what she was searching for. I loved reading this book anytime I was on the bus or the tube. It was not like any of the other books that I typically read but I enjoyed that it was a book that dealt with a more serious topic that I had never heard of or known about. I would definitely recommend for people to read this book.

Aimee has a rare disorder called Synsory Time Warp Syndrome (STWS) which causes her to vanish back into her memories. At any moment, a smell can send Aimee into a time warp, so she avoids everyday things like getting a driver's license or going on a date. Lately, all of her time warp memories center around her mom who left home when Aimee was young, so she decides finding her mom might help her understand herself.

This book will bring comfort and clarity to so many young people, while also taking them on a wonderful adventure of self discovery. I loved that certain themes - especially that of an absent parent - is explored in a way that I was not expecting and I haven’t really seen in young adult work before. For a child experiencing that absence, and for the happy ending to not be the stereotypical one we often see, I think this book will have an immense impact. I love Sarah’s writing style and absolutely love the backdrop of Seoul. As someone who lives in Seoul, you could really tell Sarah knows what she’s describing intimately and it was so immersive because of that (I was often hungry reading this!) For more thoughts, I mentioned this in a reading vlog (time stamps: 32:28-35:05)

Totally intriguing premise re: Sensory Time Warp Syndrome! An accessible and well-written story about diaspora and intergenerational hauntings.

I loved this book. I didn't realise how much I was going to love it and it ended up being my favourite of the month. It's hard to find a book that represents kdramas well but this was just perfection!!!!

The main character was written so well, the entire premise was cool, literally couldn't love it more.

Cannot wait to read more by the author.

I really loved the approach to time travel in this - I thought it was completely fascinating, the idea that you can be transported back to a memory by certain scents. This was really easy to read, and I really liked Aimee as a main character, and it was quite emotional watching her and her dad learn to communicate with each other and understand each other. Overall this was really sweet, I just think the ending felt a little rushed.

Sensory Time Warp Syndrome: a rare condition in which one of the five senses triggers the individual to time travel to a specific moment in time linked to the trigger. For Aimee Roh, that trigger is smell. When she disappears for nine hours—the longest she’s ever been gone—into a memory that doesn’t line up with what she’s always remembered, Aimee travels to Korea in search of her estranged mother. As she searches, she finds herself reconnecting with her past in an unexpected way.

I love me some good speculative fiction and this book did not disappoint! The world building is masterfully done, utilizing new characters or certain situations in order to explain how STWS works in a way that feels completely natural. Not only are we able to see how the condition works, but we also see the fallout that comes afterward and the stigma behind it, as with any other condition that people don’t understand.

While we are treated to an adorable budding romance subplot between Aimee and Junho, it never overshadows the journey she is taking to understanding herself, her condition, and her identity. In addition to Junho, other side characters like Aimee’s father and her best friend Nikita are incredibly nuanced and have their own things going on apart from Aimee and, while we don’t see a ton of them, they never feel like they have fallen to the wayside.

Though the story centers around a fictional condition, the journey that is taken is one that I’m sure many people will be able to relate to. This story plays with the idea of memory in a way that we all forget from time to time and really dives deep into how your feelings, particularly grief and loss, can affect how you remember things. Suk tackles a lot of tough emotions with compassion and care and I think a lot of readers will find a way to connect to Aimee’s journey.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher for free and have voluntarily written this review.

“I guess that’s how memories are, even for someone like me who can go back and visit pieces of them. Some you hold on to tight, some you lose to time. Some you find again in the present in a new and different way.”

Thank you to Harper360YA for an early copy of this book.

Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her dad is convinced she'll simply grow out of it if she tries hard enough, but Aimee's fear of vanishing at random has kept her from living a normal life. When Aimee disappears for nine hours into a memory of her estranged mom--a moment Aimee has never remembered before--she becomes distraught. Not only was this her longest disappearance yet, but the memory doesn't match up with the story of how her mom left--at least, not the version she's always heard from her dad. Desperate for answers, Aimee travels to Korea, where she unravels the mystery of her memories, the truth about her mother, and the reason she keeps returning to certain moments in her life. Along the way, she realizes she'll need to reconcile her past in order to save her present.

Aimee is quite a reserved person. Her condition makes her quite the outsider, forcing her out of time in various situations and she can do nothing to stop it. I do like that she tries not to allow her episodes to take over her life, even if she is more cautious. She doesn’t have many relationships with people but the bonds she does make are strong which is lovely to see. Aimee goes on quite the journey over the course of the book, literally in fact as she searches for her mum. I think she was an interesting character to read about and I felt I could resonate with her across the book.

Seeing this as a book marketed towards fans of You’ve Reached Sam, I knew I needed to pick it up - so I was very happy to receive an early copy! The plot was certainly interesting - people have the ability to travel back in time to witness memories but can’t change anything? That’s certainly not something I’ve heard about before. I think the overall flow was very good, keeping the book engaging despite some heavier topics - like grief. I did manage to read this in only a few sittings because the story went by so quickly (in a good way). There wasn’t a huge host of characters in this book and for a few of them, I do wish we got to know them more considering how they helped move Aimee’s journey onwards. I like getting to know characters in any way possible to help a story feel more realistic. Personally, I think a little more could have been done. There was an element of romance to this story but many times it felt more like a wonderful friendship over romantic feelings. There was certainly a pull between characters but I think I liked that it appeared to be more platonic overall. The ending felt like a nice conclusion to all the events. Not a perfect ending but I think that’s what makes it just right.

Overall, The Space Between Here & Now is a lovely story about managing grief in different ways.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you again to Harper360YA for an early copy of this book. Review will be live on my blog on 22nd January.

Thanks to Frenzy Reads for an ARC! This is a really fun premise, a little fantastical while still being set in our real world.

It's such a wonderful group of characters and there's a beautiful, complicated father-daughter relationship that delves into all the messy, tense, awkward, loving, and painful moments that can make up such a relationship. I really enjoyed the family drama here, plus the mystery aspects which added some surprises to the plot.

For 17-year-old Aimee Roh, time travel isn’t a science fiction trope or a fun theory; she has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome (STWS), a rare condition that causes her to disappear from her present and appear as a ghost in a memory from her past. For her, the disappearances are triggered by smell – a stranger’s perfume pulls her back to a scene from her childhood, before her mother disappeared from her life; the scent of glue brings her to the moment when Aimee met her best friend in elementary school. Now, in her senior year of high school, the disappearances are occurring in greater frequency and for longer periods, and Aimee’s father refuses to take her to a specialist, insisting she will grow out of the condition. Since many of the recently-triggered memories feature her mother, Aimee travels to South Korea in search of her, hoping that, by gaining closure about her mother’s abandonment of her, she can gain some control over her life. A thoughtful and original story, The Space Between Here and Now will particularly appeal to teen readers who have had to navigate a life-changing event or condition and are looking for some inspiration to move forward.

Seventeen-year-old Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to time travel to a moment in her life when she smells something linked to that memory. Her dad is convinced she’ll simply grow out of it if she tries hard enough, but Aimee’s fear of vanishing at random has kept her from living a normal life.

I love YA Sci-Fi books!!!! This book was fast and so easy to read and that made me absolutely devour it in one sitting.

I liked Aimee as a main character and I felt sorry for her throughout the whole story because you could see she felt all alone. Her eventually finding her feet and people who understand what she was going through and helping her not feel alone was so heartwarming!

I rated this 4 stars!

Aimee Roh has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome and the syndrome is getting worse. In attempts to get to the bottom of why she has the syndrome Aimee will try and find her mother, hoping she has all the answers. The Space Between Here and Now explores grief, expectation, and family ties. Aimee struggles with her mom's absence and her father's refusal to get her help with her syndrome. The syndrome itself is an interesting concept and one that explores memories and truth.

I received an e-galley of The Space Between Here and Now by Sarah Suk from Frenzy Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

In this fantasy contemporary novel, Aimee has Sensory Time Warp Syndrome, a rare condition that causes her to go back in time to a memory when she smells something in relation to that memory. She has no control over what the smell might be that triggers this or how long she stays in that memory and disappears from the "present." As she struggles with this condition, she also faces the challenges of getting support and acknowledgement from her father while also living with the fact that her mom left. When she disappears for nine hours, the longest disappearance yet, she is certain that learning the truth about her mom will give her the answers she needs. She travels to Korea and begins to find out secrets of her family and find a way to make sense of the past to be able to live in the present.

I really enjoyed reading The Space Between Here and Now. It made me feel so much sorrow and heartache for Aimee as she returned to her memories and felt new grief as she discovered answers to questions she's had all her life. It was such a powerful story about family, memories, and painful truths.

Aimee Roh suffers from STWS (Sensory Time Warp Syndrome) which causes her to time travel back to past memories when she smells familiar scents. The episodes are starting to ramp up, and she's heard horror stories of others getting caught in memory loops and never returning. Aimee's dad is convinced she will grow out of it. Aimee is beginning to question if there's more to the story of her mom leaving the family because she was unhappy. Did her mom also have STWS? Is she stuck out there somewhere? Aimee plans a trip to Korea to find her mom's side of the family and find answers.

This one was very intriguing! Being told in first person, it definitely focused more on the emotion and family dynamics moreso than the sci-fi action. I loved it, though! There were still high stakes moments and the sci-fi dynamic was explained, even if all of the elements didn't completely make sense. This was a story you could suspend your disbelief long enough to appreciate the storyline. There are great conversations about family, distance, communication, love, and loneliness. Aimee is a senior about to embark on her college career leaving home and friends for the first time, so there is also great conversation there. The inclusion of Korean culture was so authentically and naturally done. Korean phrases were naturally translated and there were many mentions of Korean cities, markets, parks, and street food. There are stellar elements that come together to create a solid story. It will appeal more to realistic fiction readers who want to branch out to a little taste of sci-fi more than die hard sci-fi fans. I'm glad I gave this one a try!


Note for librarians/teachers/parents -
This one reads like classic YA in that it's very innocent and could be for even younger readers. There are a few mature words (ugly-ass, "don't give a shit," damn, etc.) and one innocent kiss. I loved that it felt younger like true YA... I'd feel comfortable giving this to 7th graders and up.