Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

74 reviews

oriana095's review against another edition

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, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse and Toxic relationship

Minor: Addiction, Child death, and Drug abuse

bookishwondergoth's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective 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

3.0

This wasn’t at all what I expected, but in a good way. I thought I was going to get a load of cool spacey world-hopping stuff. Whilst there was a little of that, it was mostly a really thought provoking examination of things like race, class, poverty, assimilation, code-switching and social mobility. Also Mad Max.

Cara is an excellent, flawed and deeply determined main character and I couldn’t help but root for her. She quite literally inhabits the space between worlds, not just by jumping between them, but also the city of Wiley and all its light-skinned, privileged wealthy inhabitants, and the darker-skinned, poorer inhabitants of Ashtown. Her confusion, guilt, disgust, pride and internalised classism is extremely well done; you can absolutely tell Micaiah Johnson studies this stuff, both at actual university and the university of life too.

All of the side characters, including the antagonists, were also really excellent.

The reason why I’ve rated this book 3/5 stars instead of 4/5 is that as a story, I was less interested in what was happening. It wasn’t exactly a struggle to read but I did still find it a little boring. And although there was a canonical reason as to why the worlds were all so similar, I would dearly have loved to see more unique worlds, and more numerous worlds on page in general. We primarily hang out on Earth 0 and Earth 175. Though Cara travels to other worlds, we don’t see much of her actually in them.

Overall this is a solid standalone about those who traverse worlds both in a science-fiction sense, and in a literal, social-mobility sense.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Gore, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

Minor: Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness

esimons18's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-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? Yes

3.75

Really enjoyed this read! The first 100 or so pages were slow, a lot of setting the stage, but then by part 3 I was hooked. 

• Awesome plot/concept! 
• Some characters lacked substance, despite their relevance
• Queer love interest
• Dystopian classism

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Murder, and Classism

traa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Suicide, Blood, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Vomit

melodei3's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Torture, and Grief

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

piphux's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Murder, and Classism

Minor: Vomit

larbster90's review against another edition

adventurous reflective 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Police brutality, Medical trauma, and Car accident

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism

Minor: Gun violence, Sexual content, Dysphoria, and War

lyzz's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I enjoyed this novel! I think I would have enjoyed it better if I was more experienced listening to science fiction/fantasy on audiobook. (This is also a genre I do not read a lot in general.) The narrator, Nicole Lewis, is spectacular and perfectly embodies the scrapiness of Cara.  The challenging part on audio for me was that the author does an excellent job of world building but you have to keep track of multiple dimensions and the same characters in different dimensions. If I could go back in time, I think I would have told me to listen to the book and then read the eBook to help everything stick in my mind. 
 
What I particularly liked about this book: 

• World building is imaginative and explores themes of racism, classism and homophobia.  
• I loved that the author let us explore this world before diving into the main plot. The plot unfolds slowly and this allows us to immerse ourselves in this world.  
• Interesting character development that is meaningful - especially in the Cara character.  
• There were some interesting support characters like Gene and Del that are also well-developed and contribute meaningfully to the story. 
• Cara's voice is strong in this book.  She is a bit sarcastic, humorous, pragmatic, a little idealistic, and scrappy.  I loved her.  

I do want to emphasize that I would 100% recommend this book to someone looking for a science fiction read.  I would caution them about listening on audiobook unless they have experience listening to SFF on audio and can follow a complex world with multiple characters.  I definitely think this is a book I'll reread to capture some of the details I missed this go-round.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Murder

Minor: Homophobia

immovabletype's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Deportation

Minor: Drug abuse, Sexual content, Medical content, and War

sarahwriteaway's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

I absolutely loved this bittersweet exploration of one person’s possibilities through the lens of the multiverse. Cara was an intriguing protagonist, and became even more so as the twists and reveals continued. Her stakes grew from merely wanting the security of permanent residency in the relatively comfortable Wiley city, to something much more. 

A multiverse story could easily become unwieldy, but Johnson uses some clever worldbuilding tricks to make sure that doesn’t happen. It’s only possible to travel to 380 worlds that resonate with ‘Earth Zero’, the world where Cara lives. This means the worlds Cara travels to aren’t vastly different. The worlds where society is more equal are somewhere out of reach, as are the worlds where gun violence is prevalent. The same cast of characters fulfil different roles within much the same society, and this is resolutely a character-focused rather than a technology-focused story. If you want to know exactly how world walking works you’ll be out of luck. (I never understand why people want to know how things like this work in books, because of course it *doesn’t* work in reality, so any possible explanation would be made-up gobbledygook?)

So, if that doesn’t put you off, stay for the warmth of the mentorship between two world-weary people (Cara/Jean), stay for the understated but life-sustaining connection between two women (Cara/Dell), stay for the complexities of interacting with someone who in another life was your abuser — stay for a story about life. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Violence, and Murder

Minor: Drug abuse