Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

77 reviews

raptorq's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Classism, Domestic abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Body horror

Minor: Gun violence, Cultural appropriation, Medical content, and Suicidal thoughts

amandadevoursbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Y'all, I can't with this book. It was so freaking good.

We follow Kara who's one skill in her current life is that she is dead on over 160 parallel worlds. This means that she can travel to the other worlds and gather data.

The story twists and turns and is filled with Sapphic longing. It's a story about the endless possibilities of who we are as people, the endless number of ways we can harm each other, and the endless numbers of ways we can heal each other. 

I loved it. I'm going to reread it. And I just can't believe how good this book was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, War, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical trauma, and Murder

marioosa517's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Domestic abuse, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Xenophobia, Classism, Blood, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Child death, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Grief, War, and Gun violence

Minor: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Cursing

leannanecdote's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Drug use, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Rape, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, War, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Sexual assault, Torture, Toxic relationship, Death, Abandonment, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Murder, Racism, Self harm, Xenophobia, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Animal death, Trafficking, and Vomit

meggiemeggie52's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

To be honest, I read this for a book club last year so I don't remember much about it, just that it was hard to follow at times and that I thought it was just okay. Not a repeat for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Domestic abuse, and Death

Moderate: Murder and Physical abuse

Minor: Drug use

emily_mh's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was SO GOOD. So many people have loved this book and I really hoped I could be one of them, and I am! It has such such a great combination of plot, character, and theme, and the writing style was great: it was filled with some wry observations that either make you see things in a new light or perfectly put into words how you might already think about something. 

The story was gripping right from the off. It’s the kind of plot where you don’t really know where things are going to go, but not at all in a bad way. There are intriguing twists and some great pacing. I will say that the ending felt a little rushed, though. 

I really liked the MC Cara, who embodied the reluctant hero trope. She goes through ethical dilemmas throughout the book, torn between self-preservation and her moral compass. It was interesting seeing her perspective on these dilemmas, seeing the thought process behind her actions. Moreover, in Cara (and other characters) we see a key theme played out: how different circumstances (as seen on alternate Earths) can lead someone to become a different person. Cara gets to observe how one event happening, or not happening, could have impacted her character. And through this Cara questions if the opposite cannot also be true, that is, if different circumstances can have no impact on a person’s development, because there are people and situations we will always be drawn to due to our nature. This was really fascinating to think about. 

Another great theme was this idea of “the space between worlds”, an idea that crops up in so many places within the novel. For example, it is a physical liminal space when Cara is traversing, but it is also the space which Cara occupies as an Ashtown-born person working in Wiley City. The theme embodies how Cara feels more at home in the space between worlds than she does on said worlds themselves. 

I also thought the romance was a great touch. I loved the mutual pining and how oblivious Cara was with the whole thing. I do wish I had gotten more of an idea as to why Cara and Dell were attracted to one another; we are shown that they are, but I wanted to know the why. 

Overall this was a fantastic read and I’m excited for the potential companion novel! 

Rep: Black sapphic MC, Japanese-American sapphic LI, Ivorian-American SC 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Death of parent, Gore, Racism, Drug abuse, Body horror, Drug use, and Addiction

Minor: War, Child abuse, Sexual content, Colonisation, Suicide, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Body shaming, Medical content, Miscarriage, Vomit, Ableism, Pedophilia, Emotional abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Homophobia, Transphobia, Terminal illness, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, and Blood

Minor: nuclear warfare, volcano

trips's review

adventurous dark informative tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book has an amazing premise that really hooked me in. The prose is beautiful and the worldbuilding is fantastic. Multiverse traversing is possible, and offers a variety of desirable information to gather from the multiple worlds. But the catch, you can't traverse to a world and survive if your counterpart on that world is alive. So people are hired as traversers who were born in, to put it bluntly, conditions where survival is bleak, because their counterparts are most often dead in many of the other worlds.

The first 50% of this book is a great read, I couldn't put it down. Unfortunately, I can't say as much towards the second half. The plot begins to meander as you can tell where the story is going and things get much slower. 
It was also frustrating that there was what I was hoping to be a compelling relationship between Cara and Dell, but I personally didn't feel like got touched on enough. Cara thinks about Dell a lot but Dell isn't actually present with Cara all that much, so I didn't really feel the connection or chemistry between the two. 

Overall this story has extremely interesting concepts in a world I'd be happy to revisit, it just fell flat for me in a few area. I would certainly look out for this authors next book!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Murder and Toxic relationship

Minor: Drug abuse

oriana095's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Violence, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Physical abuse and Toxic relationship

Minor: Drug abuse, Addiction, and Child death

hailstorm3812's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

THIS WAS SO GOOD. Cara is a character you can instantly get attached to and the worldbuilding is phenomenal. And the concept of visiting other worlds leading to finding out who you choose to be, love, live, etc is so powerful.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Death of parent, Murder, Toxic relationship, and Domestic abuse

scenic92's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder