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.

When I realized that this book had magical realism + queer romance + trans representation, I hit that NetGalley request button SO FAST. Spoiler alert…I loved this book.

Darby’s story accurately captured that point around age 30 when life starts throwing curve balls and you need to step back to reset. But the fun thing about his experience is that he encountered teenage Darby along his path to self-discovery.

I won’t go into detail about the sliding-doors element, but let’s just say I was satisfied. Do I wish there had been more heartfelt bookstore moments? Yes…but I’m a sucker for magical anything, so I’ll always want more!

Darby’s transgender identity was a central part of the narrative, and it’s obvious that Edward Underhill put his heart, soul, and self on the page. This is an important book, now more than ever, and I felt so much joy seeing family members and friends represented.

Another highlight was how realistic the ending was, especially concerning the romance. As a fan of bittersweet outcomes, I thought Darby’s overall arc was 100% believable, with a beautiful emphasis on chosen family. By the final page, there were tears in my eyes and that’s always a good sign!

A book store that takes you back in time to to talk to your younger self ✨📚🪄💙

Snapshot📸
-trans MC🏳️‍⚧️, queer side characters 🏳️‍🌈
-coming of age but make it turning 30
-realistic friendships, character focused story
-themes of finding yourself, building community and forgiveness

Beautifully written and loved the time travel parts between younger and older Darby. Although this is an adult fiction book, I think YA readers would also enjoy. Darby was messy but that’s ultimately what I liked about him, he’s not perfect and has growing pains (even us 29 going on 30 year olds have them)! Michael was the sweetest guy ever 🥺 I wanted a more joyful ending for Darby’s life back home and with Michael but understand the choice to make it realistic and have it end the way it did—would love to see where Darby ends up next!

Felt like a love letter to the places, books and friends that help raise queer youth 4⭐️📖💫

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC 🩷

I was excited to read Underhill’s first adult novel. Unfortunately this really still felt very YA to me. The main character is 30 but so far he’s spending a lot of time remembering things that happened while he was in high school. I’m also 30% into the book and so far everything going on was in the synopsis. This is moving too slow and feeling too much like YA for me so I decided to DNF here. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free book and ebook to review.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was left wondering exactly what the author's intent was with the plot line and how it ended. I finished it yesterday and I am still left scratching my head. The time travel aspect was a little weird, especially if you believe all those things about not being able to meet yourself in the past or it will unravel the cosmic future and whatnot (I think that was even in Back to the Future?).

Honestly, I thought Darby was a totally unlikable character, now and then. I would love a book about the friend group in New York with Darby as a far removed side character. I would read the heck out of a story about Olivia and people she meets at Starbucks. She was delightful even though you only have her for a couple of chapters.

I feel like this story wanted to be the next big thing in the bildungsroman or coming of age story. Instead, I just feel frustrated and wondering what the heck I just read.

This was a bummer of a read for me.

Thanks to Avon Books and Netgalley for this ARC.

“And I care about all that and simultaneously don’t care at all because it’s worth it. Because maybe I don’t need to love everything about a place to belong there. Maybe I can choose to belong, even if occasionally pieces of me don’t quite fit, because I belong with the people I found. The people I chose. Because I did choose them, even if I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing.”

@edwardunderhill’s #TheInBetweenBookstore instantly captured my attention as a queer person who couldn’t wait to escape from the small Illinois town I grew up in. What I expected to be a sweet queer romcom quickly turned in a cathartic release of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Following Darby, a trans man on the cusp of turning thirty, finds himself unemployed and aimless in NYC. Not knowing what to do, he decides to return to his small Illinois town to help his mom move out of his childhood home. While there, he stumbles into his old safe harbor in a storm of teenhood, the In-Between bookstore. But when he walks through he realizes the young girl working behind the counter is him from the past. Coupled with running into his old best friend (and learning about how he’s changed), Darby has to figure out why he is time traveling in just this one spot in town, and in the process, just what home means to him.

Although my teenage years didn’t involve me coming to terms with my gender identity, I was still a gay teen trying to come up for air in a community where being gay was definitely not “normal.” Darby’s return to his hometown makes me think about my own return for my high school reunion, how I expected things to be more boring, less welcoming than my Seattle safe haven. And, well, I wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t right either. Darby’s interactions with high school friends who have matured since graduation is an honest mirror to how people are capable of change and growth, and perhaps not who we knew back then. While the story itself does revolve around Darby righting the wrongs of his past, the strongest points for me come in the dialogue with him and his ex-best friend, Michael

This one overall reminds me a little of The Midnight Library, with the way life branches based on choices.

Darby grew up in a small down and didn't know how to find a space for himself in that smallness as he discovered and explored being trans. Instead he found room to grow and people to surround himself with in New York where he attended college and found a job. However a job loss and his mom's planned move takes him back to his small town and he discovers how much he missed as a teen wrapped up in his own struggles.

Slightly spoilery - I'm not a huge fan of the ending for this, but I think that's the point - life isn't all perfection. Still a pretty fun read and relatable as someone also from a small town (much smaller than Oak Falls) in Illinois.

The concept of traveling back to see yourself as a teenager had me hooked from the description. It was a bit of a slow burn with a mild ending, which made for a cozy read. It was nice to fantasize along our main character, Darby, about the different versions of ourselves that live out in the universe and find comfort in the life we are conscious in.

The book starts in NYC, where Darby, a trans male, is meeting his friends at a bar for a birthday celebration, he is in a pretty depressed mood as he just lost his job and feels incredibly lost in life. At the birthday, after arguing with his friend Olivia, he decides that he is going to sell all of his stuff and go back to his hometown Oak Falls to help his mother move from his childhood house to a new condo. A lot of Oak Falls has changed, but the bookstore Darby worked at is still standing throughout high school, In Between Books. When Darby steps into the store, everything feels the same, but when Darby notices the papers say 2009 and the kid working the cash register is eerily familiar - Darby realizes he has stepped into the past. Darby is now presented with a choice to rewrite his past to make his present better - as in the past he had a falling out with his best friend and life was incredibly difficult figuring out he was trans.

I give this book a solid 3, maybe even 3.5. My main problem with this book is that it had the potential to be an incredible, adventurous story about self-discovery, but instead, it felt like a lot of nothing happened. I needed more. The characters were well-written, which helped the book be better with the lack of action. It was very melancholic. I find things weren't as fleshed out like I'm sorry, but how did Darby not remember anything that had happened in his fight with Michael - I think that would be pretty memorable since he was his only friend in school.

This is enjoyable but didn't have the sweet rom-com vibes I love. If messy characters trying to adult and disaster bisexuals are what you're looking for, this book is a good one. I truly enjoyed the main characters, mistakes and all.

After reading the first few pages, I had to stop and check whether the book belonged to the YA genre. I have nothing against the genre itself; I just lost interest in it somewhere along the way. In the beginning, the main character came across as too childish for someone approaching 30. It felt like reading Twitter posts, with phrases like “hangry” and “IRL” and sentences such as “I absolutely have no chill.” This was quite irksome, but I knew from the blurb that the book sounded like something I would enjoy, so I decided to keep going.

I'm glad I chose to continue reading because, as the story unfolds, I can clearly see Darby's growth.

The In-Between Bookstore l follows the journey of Darby, a nearly 30-year-old trans man who is trying to figure out what he wants to do next in life after being laid off and feeling lost in New York. Having decided to return to his small hometown in Illinois, he steps into the old bookstore where he once worked during his high school years. However, an extraordinary twist of fate occurs and he unexpectedly slips through the fabric of time, encountering his teenage self—before his transition and before his falling out with his closest friend, Michael.

This story is an emotional and heartfelt tale of self-discovery. The ending feels both happy and sad because Darby found what he wanted and also needed to make a decision to let go at the same time. I was hoping for something else the whole time, but I am also not disappointed by the outcome.

I feel conflicted because the writing style seems aimed at a younger audience, yet the overall story is definitely intended for readers like me. Regardless, I still enjoy it a lot.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for providing the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ugh I so wanted to love this…….magical realism…..bookstores……LGBTQIA main character leaves New York to head back to small town Illinois and finds that it has a whole LGBTQIA community. This sounded awesome. And not that it wasn’t an okay read, I just was disappointed at the way it went in the end. Definitely just a one time read for me. Hoping it finds a niche with another reader.
I received an ARC of this title, all opinions are my own.

The premise of this book pulled me in right away. I’m always a sucker for time travel! And overall it was a really enjoyable read!

I very much liked and connected to the voice of the protagonist and thought all the characters were unique and interesting. The relationship building was fantastic and the plot was very enticing.

I felt it addressed a lot of important topics incredibly well.

The only thing that I didn’t really enjoy with this book was at about 2/3 of the way through I started to not understand the main character’s decisions and had trouble feeling empathy for him.

That being said, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys YA romance, coming of age stories, and books about finding yourself.

I received a a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and statements are my own.

There’s a wonderful honesty and warmth to <I>The In-Between Bookstore</I>. The places in it feel like real places I might actually visit. The characters are flawed and human, like real people I might one day meet and befriend.

When I first read the concept, I braced myself for the expected drivel of “<strike>two legs</strike> city baaaad; <strike>four legs</strike>small town gooooood.” This is not at all what happens. Not only are NYC and Darby’s reasons for being fed up with it portrayed very realistically and believably - who among us hasn’t been between jobs, priced out of our shitty apartment, and sick of traffic noise? But Darby’s NYC friends, who are introduced in the very first chapter are lovable and nuanced and worth coming back to. Moreover, while most small towns as seen in (lazy) romance novels and (schlocky) women’s lit are forcibly filtered through rose-colored glasses, they still manage to come off as conformist, heteronormative Stepford hell in the light of day. Not so with Oak Falls, the dreaded small town of Darby’s childhood. Rather, Oak Falls, too, feels real. Imperfect but growing— and, I loved this part—with its own queer community. Yes, we’re everywhere, bitches. Can’t escape us.

And speaking of lovable: Darby’s mom is basically the sweetest, without coming off as cloying, anachronistically domestic, or otherwise unbelievable. Avoidant anxiety is all too real, but seriously, Darby, call her more often! And I say this as a fellow millennial with a vicious hatred of all things phone call.

Another element which had me bracing myself but turned out so much better than I expected was Darby’s relationship with Michael. Underhill writes both men with great empathy and complexity, without resorting to easy, cliche answers. Yes, their old high school conflict is rooted in a Big Misunderstanding, but that’s a lot more sympathetic coming from two awkward, lonely teens, who are both self-absorbed in their own very real pain. I do wish the crap communication hadn’t carried over into their adult years, but given that they hadn’t spoken in the interim and Darby is almost literally reliving his past, some regression is understandable. Ultimately, when they find some bittersweet closure, I’m cheering for them and finding it far more sweet than bitter.

And yes, I loved how things between them ended.

While there’s only so much I’m qualified to say, as a cis lady, I could really tell that Underhill’s portrayal of Darby’s transness came from a personal, well-explored place. I loved how fluidly Underhill tied it into all of the book’s themes, without ever hitting my ‘ugh, redundancy’ buttons. He’s neither coy nor heavy-handed with it, but rather assured and honest. It’s especially relevant to the magical realism elements of the time travel and themes of self-acceptance transmitted through time.

My only real complaints about this book are entirely matters of personal preference/pet peeves. While Darby (and Michael’s) atrocious communication are genuinely part of their characterization and written with intentionality, the fact remains that I find miscommunication extremely annoying to read. On an even pettier level, I found all the references to Buffy in the flashbacks pretty cringe, due to how poorly the show has aged in the intervening years, as well as the revelations of what a turd Joss Whedon has been all along. But I acknowledge, back in 2009 that show was important and meaningful to me as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions within are my own.

sadly this one was a DNF for me. I couldn't quite feel as immersed as I was hoping and I think it was more my own expectations not meeting the reality of the work.

I was given an e-ARC and am giving my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley for this opportunity!

I went into this unsure of what to expect. I honestly didn’t even know that the main character was trans until I started reading, which was a very pleasant surprise. As a transman myself, I’m always interested to read other trans people’s experiences, fiction or not, and this book in particular was incredibly immersive and different than others I’ve read. Throughout the book, the main character, Darby, is traveling into the past through a local bookstore in his home town (where he is visiting after he was laid off). He travels specifically to when he was a teenager, about to go to boarding school (and excited about it), but he was still unsure about his gender identity. There are two main objectives Darby is navigating: finding out why he and his best friend fought and then stopped talking and helping his past self to learn about what being trans is, and that it even is a thing at all. We never are in younger-Darby’s POV, although it is always in first-person. Instead, we see younger Darby through older-Darby’s eyes. Darby when he is about to turn 30 and having lived through what younger-Darby is looking forward to. Has grown into himself, realized things about himself. It was so interesting reading how older-Darby was so shocked by his younger self’s behavior and seeing things differently in hindsight. It reminded me of my childhood and how it translates to who I am today vs who I was when I was younger. It really makes me think of how far I’ve come, and was such a lovely reminder of my strength. Traveling with Darby to and from the past and how he used his time in the past to help him in the present. It was very cathartic and so well written and done.
The narrator did a fantastic job of portraying Darby’s inner monologue. They really brought the story to life in an incredible way.