A light yet thought-provoking adult debut where a trans man approaching 30 goes back to his small hometown and has to confront his younger self in a bookstore time loop where the year is 2009. I've read Underhill's YA debut, Always the Almost and loved it. Needless to say, I was excited to read his adult debut and it delivered.

As a trans man myself, I loved how it made me reflect on what I would do if I were in Darby's shoes. What would I say to my high school self? I loved seeing Darby learning to appreciate his small town and seeing that queer people do exist there.

The time travel aspect was light and did it's job. I didn't think it was too cheesy or over the top. This was quite a page turner and had me on the edge of my sea eagerly awaiting the next time we got to visit Young Darby.

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants a light, reflecting read about small towns, childhood, adulthood and transness.

A stunning piece of magical realism. Often painful but ultimately hopeful, this is Underhill all grown up. His stories have a way of reaching into you and tugging out a truth you didn’t know you were ready to hear. But like Darby, The In-Between Bookstore found me when I needed it.

People who are roughly 30 think their lives are so hard because of miscommunication that happened 12 years before. Also a queer guy from a small town being surprised that there are queer quys in small towns.

This was fine, but not spectacular. I'll probably forget it soon.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

The In-between bookstore was an interested read but I was so frustrated by the lack of communication between the characters

I can connect to the themes of grieving what could have been, wishing you could redo moments, and feeling lost in who you are, and I know that there are plenty of other people who might feel the same.

This was just an enjoyable story. A time travel book that felt refreshing. Darby returns to his hometown to help his mother move. He also happens to be going through a bit of a personal crisis. When he walks into his hometown bookstore, he goes back in time and comes face to face with his high school self.

I really liked how Darby is trying to figure out the purpose of him being able to go back in time, but in the process learns more about his present. I liked how he also discovered more about his hometown and the people who live there.

This was just cozy and fun and heartwarming.

The In-Between Bookstore was a pleasant surprise to read. Did some of the book feel juvenile, yes, but was seeing Darby, a trans man, struggle to forgive his inner child and rehash high school drama during a rough period in his life intriguing, also yes. I really liked the ending of this story and have found myself going back to it and thinking of all the what ifs in my own world; wondering if in another universe I would be happy where I am. I feel like thats all a part of the human experience, it’s messy but beautiful at the same time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I always approach adult novels from YA authors a bit cautiously, but for this one the slight in-betweenness of the genres ended up working great. Underhill was great at capturing the return to a childhood small town and all the various ways a town and the person who has moved away can change. The contrasts between the expectations and the reality were done really well and there is quite a lot of charm and nostalgia in the bookstore along with a lot of hope, acceptance and a sense of community.

As far as the story goes, miscommunication is central to the plot in some ways and I was a bit exasperated about that. I do think there was a time in my life where figuring out what went wrong was more important to me and that’s sort of why I think this might work better for the YA audience.

I think there is a lot of insight for someone who is just figuring out who they are here. While there is a bittersweet tone to the ending, I think Underhill does an important job of reminding us that there is hope, there will be heartbreak and joy and that one will find their place in life.

This book was a delight to read! Dealing with uncomfortable emotions from high-school, floundering and figuring out what you want to do with life, and reconnecting with your past were all themes of this book and as someone close to Darby's age and also queer, this book was both a rehashing of my high school days and also a breath of fresh air. I really enjoyed reading this, I also teared up at the end, of course. 4.5/5

Darby, a trans man, is weeks away om his thirtieth birthday when he loses his job. He sells his furniture, packs up a rental car and drives home, unsure of what he wants or what he should be doing. While home, he walks into the bookstore and is transported to 2009, when he was working as a high school student.

Why I started this book: Time traveling book store? Yes please.

Why I finished it: This was more about understanding yourself and your journey than a time traveling magical adventure. So I struggled with it and with Darby. A case of missed expectations. Plus I hated how much Darby was floundering in life, in this adventure and in his communication.

I absolutely loved this new adult novel from Mr. Underhill! I binged it quickly and loved learning about Darcy and his life in between the bookstore in Illinois and NYC! I highly recommend! 5 stars!

"The In-Between Bookstore" is an entertaining story of Darby and how he approached life after coming out as transgender.

He stumbles on this unique ability to travel back in time through his favorite, childhood bookstore. He sees young Darby who has not come to terms with being trans and attempts to help spark the realization slowly.

Additionally, adult Darby must also come to terms with his falling out with former best friend, Michael, and how a misunderstanding completely changed the trajectory of their friendship.

While some of the book felt a little too "high school," I suppose it did make sense as Darby was rehashing high school emotions. It just sometimes felt a little too much. All in all, I think this is a great book to read, especially for allies as these stories deserve to be told and broadcasted.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for selecting me for this ARC.

I will be honest in saying I had a very hard time getting into this novel. This book felt very YA despite being billed for adult audiences. The premise is fun, though not wholly original, and the book has a least of heart and warmth. This one was not for me.

An interesting idea that could have benefited from a little more refinement and world building.

Darby has just lost his job and his rent is going up so he decides he’s done with New York. He heads back home to the small town he’s been running from. When he visits In Between Bookstore, where he used to work as a teenager, he finds himself transported in time and his younger self working behind the register. This is the perfect opportunity for him to figure out where he went wrong with his childhood best friend, Michael.

The location specific time travel was an interesting premise, but it ultimately felt underdeveloped. Darby spends most of the book trying to figure out why the time travel is happening but we’re still left with a lot of questions at the end. For example, what causes the instability in the time travel? Darby’s problem solving also was lacking in creativity. Instead of trying something new he kept repeating the same things over and over. Like seriously, why not just leave his phone in the car?

I’m torn on the idea of Darby trying to help his younger self by requesting Transgender History. It feels simultaneously like an act of kindness and a selfish decision. He’s willing to sacrifice changing everything about the world he knows to help himself figure out his gender sooner.

The idea of time traveling through the bookstore appealed to me but the execution felt clunky. If you’re not looking for the most complex and thorough world building this could be an enjoyable read. Overall, this wasn’t my favorite story by Underhill but it’s always good to have more stories about transgender characters.

Darby is living in New York City when he loses his job and his direction at the same time. I think it's safe to say he is feeling a bit lost, and takes the opportunity to go home to small town Illinois to get a handle on things. Once there, he reconnects with his best friend from childhood and tries to figure out where things went wrong.

This is absolutely a coming of age novel, and a great one at that. Darby is transgender, and that is a huge part of this book. Darby grapples with feeling at home in his body and at being secure in his identity and that comes through in his struggle to fit in in the world. I ached for Darby reading about his struggles, and wanted him to find his peace in the world. This is a beautiful story of found family and discovering who you are, as well as how to be okay with that. Overall, I enjoyed the character development and the slower paced plot. I would call this a more character driven book, so be ready to enjoy the journey.

I enjoyed Edward Underhill's Young Adult stories so I was excited to see his writing with an adult setting. However since the story is about going back in time it ended up feeling the same as his YA books. I enjoyed the characters and the writing but I was left wanting a whole lot more. By the end I was wishing it was a romance novel and left overall unsatisfied.

i really enjoyed this one! i love edward underhill’s writing, so i had high hopes for this one and it satisfied what i wanted!

i loved getting a deep dive into not only darby’s past but even seeing some of michael’s as well through the flashbacks, to really get to know them. and i loved the ending in how we may not have gotten the romantic perfect ending that was expected, but the ending that we need for our souls. life doesnt always happen exactly how we expect but it doesnt mean that we are not where we need to be!

my only complaint is that it maybe fell a LITTLE short - i would have loved more conversations with darby and his mom, or even some with some of the other people in Oak Falls that Michael stayed friends with. i loved all the characters and would have really enjoyed seeing more dynamics between different people!

thank you Avon and Harper Voyage for the eARC in return for an honest review!

I love Underhill's YA books, and was so excited for this adult debut, but this really isn't much of a departure from his usual writing. Despite not being YA, this book still has a weird obsession with being in high school that goes beyond nostalgia or unresolved friendship woes. I found high school to be utterly forgettable and couldn't understand Darby's obsession.

I had a similar falling out with my high school best friend. It was sudden and painful. But 10 or so years later, they invited me for coffee, and we started our friendship up again like nothing happened. All of those old high school hurts felt distant and unimportant. I find it hard to believe that both Michael and Darby are both still so hung up on an argument from when they were 17 on the verge of 30 that they can barely even be civil to each other.

The romance similarly felt abrupt, especially without much build up before the first kiss. They're fighting one moment, avoiding each other the next, and then suddenly they're kissing? The plot gave me a bit of whiplash. I did enjoy the time travel multiverse aspect and how it played out, and I even didn't mind the ending and the lack of a HEA, but I mostly found both Darby and Michael baffling at the best of times and infuriating at the worst.

This is a captivating read for anyone who has ever yearned for self-discovery, particularly those within the LGBTQIA+ community, who will find solace in Darby's poignant journey of embracing his trans identity and navigating the complexities of love, identity, and small-town life.

There’s always this idea that if you knew then what you know now, you could have done better. Been smarter, faster, kinder; said the right words, done the right thing, know what you’re supposed to know when you most need to know it. But when it really comes down to it, if you were given a handful of stolen moments with your younger self, what would you say? Would you give voice to all the mistakes you’ve made, all the hurt you’ve suffered? Would you want to change your life … or change theirs?

Darby is a trans man heading towards thirty with no idea of what he’s doing, where he’s going, or how he got there. With his job gone, his rent climbing, having gotten into a fight with his best friend, Darby decides to go home to Oak Falls. There, at the In-Between Bookstore, Darby steps back in time to 2009 when he worked behind the counter, uncomfortable in his own skin, living as a girl because he didn’t even know that being trans was a possibility then.

Darby doesn’t know if he wants to save himself, shake himself, or run away. With his mother downsizing to a condo, Darby finds himself going through more than just old clothes and toys, but his old life. Michael, his ex-best friend — now a teacher at their old school, and a discretely out gay man — leaves Darby shaken each time they meet. He’s missed Michael, missed his friend … and there is so much hurt between them of things unsaid. Darby doesn’t even remember what they argued about or why Michael walked away from their friendship. But here, now, he might have a chance to do something about it.

Each time he enters the bookstore, Darby steps back in time, back to when Darby and Michael were still friends; he watches the pair interact, himself as an oblivious child unaware of who he is, oblivious to Michael’s own struggles. And it hurts. It hurts to be able to see, with the benefit of time and distance, all the small ways in which he hurt his friend. While Darby’s working towards mending that broken bridge in the present day, there’s this thought: what if he could stop the fight before it happened?

The In-Between Bookstore is a melancholy character study about a man who is lost. Going home was an emotional decision, made because the stress of life in New York — the bills, the smell, the noise, the sudden unemployment — was all just too much. Going home felt simpler, felt safer. Helping his mom, revisiting his childhood … and maybe staying. Maybe small town life wasn’t as bad as Darby thought it was; maybe small town people weren’t, either.

And there is magic in going back and still finding love. Darby’s mother never once doubted her son, stood behind him when he announced his discovery of who he was. She accepted her child’s gender the same way she accepted every poorly painted mug given for birthdays and mother’s days. She doesn’t feel so much a character than an idealized mother — always accepting, always patient, never asking for anything more than company … and it’s sort of a shame. I think Darby would have benefited from someone more settled in life, someone more emotionally stable.

The book isn’t about the romance between Michael and Darby, either as teenagers or adults. It’s not about the romance at all. Michael is simply a missed opportunity. A moment that might have been, a life Darby could have had if that’s the path they had taken. Darby keeps jerking Michael around, both in the present day and the past, and this feels almost more like a deconstruction of the high school romance, or the one that got away trope.

Darby often complains that his younger self is oblivious to the emotions of others, and this is because Darby has no idea what a mirror is. Darby hasn’t really grown from his younger version other than to realize he’s trans and find friends in New York. He treats his friends from New York with the same casual obliviousness and disinterest as he does Michael and the other people from Oak Falls — people he grew up with, went to school with. Because Darby feel like he is only interested in Darby.

It’s a lot of naval gazing, a lot self-indulgent obsession — and while well written, I think the book didn’t quite manage to do what it intended to do. What I saw was an adult Darby who was ineffectual, inconsistent, thoughtless, casually cruel, indifferent, and isolated. He is someone who would rather put the burden upon the younger version of himself to fix a problem than look at the world around him and realize he’s making the same mistakes in the here and now. It’s an idolization of a magic fix for a character who does nothing to earn the fix, and nothing to earn my sympathy.

I found this book boring, but the writing is smooth and flows easily. It is so very readable that I finished it one sitting. The pace is decent; even with the flipping back and fourth in time, the momentum was never lost between one of Darby’s “woe is me” moments and the next. The time travel was lightly touched and never overwhelmed the story. I just … I wish I’d been whelmed by any part of if. I tend to like difficult characters, but Darby was just too passive, too whiny, and too lackluster for me. I wanted him to do something about his life rather than hurt the people around him because he felt bad for himself. I wanted him to have a moment of clarity about how he treated his friends — both then and now. I wanted him to do one thing purposeful that didn’t feel like it was driven either by a tantrum or self-pity. And I never got that. I’m sorry, but as much as I enjoyed the writing (and will be looking for more work from this author to see if I like another character or book of theirs better), this book is a pass from me.