The Space Between Worlds

"I'm the best in the universe at letting bad shit happen to me."

This wasn't a bad book at all, and actually it had me hooked up until the ending started rolling, and then it felt like I was reading a different book entirely.

In a universe of multiple Earths, Cara is unique in that her self on most of these other worlds has already died. This allows her the privilege of visiting these other Earths and gathering information without being killed herself as the multiverse tries to correct itself. She makes a decent living doing this and maintains ties with her family living outside her walled city, but she also has a pretty large secret she's kept hidden from everyone.

Up front I'll say that the author can write. This was more philosophical and character-driven than I was expecting, and I was delighted by that. The multiverse aspect is really just used as a setting, and despite being important to Cara's character, manages to take a back seat to everything else going on. There's thoughts and discussions on classism and what it takes to survive a world of haves and have nots which I appreciated, and I loved how Cara approached her life, her job, and her resiliency at managing to survive.

When the ending started happening, though, I kind of felt like I was reading a different book. While the ending itself (prior to the epilogue) made sense and was at least a little bit satisfying in the moment, I thought that (ending/epilogue spoilers here) the author potentially walking back Adra/Adam being bad with a reconciliation with Nik Nik undid a lot of what the ending already finalized. I don't know if any of that is addressed in the second book, but it felt really vague and wishywashy.

I also thought the relationship between Dell and Cara wasn't handled well. It's basically one-sided for a majority of the book, with some hints at more, until the ending when suddenly things go from 0 to 100 without any buildup. It didn't feel natural, it didn't feel right, and felt more like a checkbox than anything else. I thought that was disappointing.

I really did enjoy a lot of what this book was doing, I just wish it had ended better. I might check out the second book to see if anything from the ending here is resolved more fully there, but I won't make it a priority.