Sixteen-year old Anna Sullivan is an outsider at her high school. Quiet and shy, as well as cursed with a tortuous family past, she can’t hope to attract the attention of popular Tyler Marsh, for whom she has a crush. How could a girl like her, a girl with a low social status, an alcoholic father and a mother who abandoned her, dare hope anything at all in life?
Then the nightmares begin... nightmares of a horrible massacre at school...
What do these dreams mean? Is Anna somehow having a glimpse of the future?
Things get more confusing when she realizes Tyler is having the same dreams. In fact, he seems to be sharing the same dreams with her, at the same time. Thus begins Anna and Tyler’s dark relationship as together they try to decipher the meaning of the nightmares and in doing so discover their connection to quantum physics and multiple parallel dimensions.
I’m a huge fan of Sokoloff and have read all of her books. I was thrilled to read this, her first young adult novel, which, in my opinion, is her darkest work to date. Sokoloff has a gift of pulling readers immediately into her stories. Her writing style, though simple and succinct, is exquisite. She knows how to combine long sentences with sudden short ones, thus creating a sensuous cadence and rhythm. The novel is also filled with vivid images, mystery, and a strong atmosphere of danger. I also like the way she interlaces psychological elements into the plot, thus adding depth to the story.
One of the aspects of this novel I enjoyed the most was how Sokoloff incorporated quantum physics and the idea of multiple dimensions and parallel universes into her storyline. This definitely adds something different and original from other teen horror novels in the market today. It also stimulates readers’ minds. The story crosses genres; it’s a thriller with a bit of horror and a dash of the supernatural.
I highly recommend The Space Between to fans of dark YA thrillers as well as to those readers who like a sprinkle of science in their books.
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