Felicity Staples hates reporting on murders. As a journalist for a midsize New York City paper, she knows she must take on the assignment to research Madison May’s shocking murder, but the crime seems random and the suspect is in the wind. That is, until Felicity spots the killer on the subway, right before he vanishes.
Soon, Felicity senses her entire universe has shifted. No one remembers Madison May, or Felicity’s encounter with the mysterious man. And her cat is missing. Felicity realizes that in her pursuit of Madison’s killer, she followed him into a different dimension—one where everything about her existence is slightly altered. At first, she is determined to return to the reality she knows, but when Madison May—in this world, a struggling actress—is murdered again, Felicity decides she must find the killer—and learns that she is not the only one hunting him.
Traveling through different realities, Felicity uncovers the opportunity—and danger—of living more than one life. (Pub Date: Jul 6, 2021)
It's hard to explain this without spoilers but I'll do my best. There's this psycho who thinks he's in a love story searching in every dimension for the closest thing to the Madison May he once met and could never have again. It's not a romance because he just kills whenever the Madison he finds turns out to be different. Felicity is a journalist and she gets involved with the organization trying to stop this man, also forced to travel after him again and again.
I have to say this is a 3+ because it's entertaining, but it takes elements from so many hyped books without doing much to create a solid identity for itself.
I liked both characters from which we get the pov. I wonder if I can say both because Madison was actually many Madisons, one for each reality her stalker/killer crossed, while Felicity is the one we actually follow. The beginning of the book is also gripping, so you will probably start by liking it.
The thing is that once it starts to explain what is happening, it felt lacking. I feel the author really wanted to write something like Dark Matter, but didn't have enough resources or time to give his theory enough basis. The result was I didn't buy it and I feel he didn't expect me to buy it either. Of course, that alone wasn't what removed two stars from my rating, though for scientific fiction it's a big enough problem—the author always had the option to make multiverse crossing magical.
At some point, the characters also lost me. I was never sure of what Felicity really wanted after she gets over not being able to go back to her original life. This will sound silly, but it did seem important to her, and yet I don't know if she did define who her romantic interest really was. She wasn't 100% in love with her original boyfriend, but did she love any of his versions? It's not only the romance part, what was she really after in her life? What was I cheering her on for? I gradually lost contact with her, though I did and still do like the character. Perhaps, instead of developing the story simply changed from reality to reality, and so I wasn't as interested in it as we got to the conclusion.
Another flaw was that sometimes it got confusing. I liked the ending, it was great considering what he had to work with, but the scene of the climax, for example, was a mess. The scenes leading to it had already alienated me too.
This is a book that could have been super great and it is super great at times, but the expectation the super great beginning generates was too high for the messy middle and the okay ending. It's still interesting, and I'll still recommend to anyone looking for a quick scifi to read this summer.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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