Review - 'The Space Between Worlds' by Micaiah Johnson

I haven't met a multiverse story I didn't like, until now.

Conceptually, The Space Between Worlds has a lot of potential. In this version of parallel universes, you can only travel to a different one if your counterpart is already dead. Enter Cara, who has died in most other worlds, so she's able to travel between them. Yep, I can totally get behind that. But that was pretty much it for things I enjoyed, and it was only a very small part of the story.

Where this book fell apart for me is in almost everything else.

To start with, this story is extremely hard to follow. I'm honestly baffled because the concept of a parallel universe isn't that difficult to grasp; it's just like our universe but with a few minor changes. And yet, the worldbuilding here is maximumly awkward and lumbering, turning small differences into obscure and confusing concepts that were never fully explained.

Information is just dumped on the reader without any consideration for whether it's necessary or relevant. Pages upon pages are spent on completely irrelevant worlds we won't visit again or people we don't need to know (most of whom have multiple names in each universe). But when we get to crucial information (what is a runner?), no explanation is given, so I never got a solid grasp of these worlds.

And it's not just the worldbuilding, but the writing as a whole. It feels fragmented and random. Sentences, paragraphs, and scenes don't logically follow from previous ones. Even dialogues don't really make sense. It's as if the author had written monologues for each speaker, then just interweaved their lines together and called it a conversation.

There was supposed to be a queer love story in here, but that baffled me too. Like, where is it? If Cara didn't explicitly tell the reader that she's in love with Dell and constantly state that she's flirting with her, I wouldn't have guessed from her words or their interactions.

I also couldn't connect with any of the characters. Their motivations, feelings, and actions all remain a mystery to me. In particular, Cara's simultaneous blend of cynically detached while also angsty philosophical narrative tone did not work for me, and came across as very naïve and immature. Also, what kind of names are Nik Nik and Mr. Cheeks? I kept thinking I'm reading about a toddler and his pet instead of an emperor and his runner.

Still, all that can be overlooked if the plot made sense. But it doesn't. It feels like there are multiple separate stories in here instead of one coherent one. And they were all just mashed up together in the most convoluted and haphazard way possible.

What a waste. Conceptually, this is a good one. But the execution is so confusing as to be almost incomprehensible. Nothing in here made sense to me. Not the writing, nor the story, nor the characters, nor the worldbuilding. What a complete disappointment this turned out to be.

Readaroo Rating: 1 star