Member Reviews
It was very well written and amazing! I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy book!
This was a DNF for me. I couldn't get past the first few chapters where the main character so easily believes everything the stranger tells her. Was too difficult to get on board with the story after that.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in return for an honest review
this was a really fun read, I enjoyed the plot of the book and going through this world. The characters were great and I enjoyed getting to know the characters.
I really wanted to love this one but there were too many factors that just didn't work for me.
Firstly, the pros!
The cover is beautiful!! Captures the book well.
The plot. It's been done before many times but that's not a bad thing and i did like the idea.
Chapter 22. This was a very emotional chapter, first time my train of thought stopped and i concentrated.
Ezra. Ezra is a good character. I like Ezra!
Cons...
Without being negative, it just felt like everything was thrown at us, spoon fed, so that i had no chance to work things out for myself. The beginning was super interesting and as soon as i was interested in Rosie, BAM we get Grey.
When i started to like Grey BAM we get Ezra.
And so on... it was fast paced in a bad way, with no room to love the characters! (And i definitely could have loved the characters!)
That's actually the only con - i felt the writing was not great and there was no context to anything.
But that is my personal opinion, i think someone else (younger) could love this as it is easy to read. I did finish it and the latter half was a bit better.
This was a good story with great characters. I really enjoyed this book. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read it!
I think as a debut novel for Megan it was really good, I could see there is a lot of potential to the story and I enjoyed where the author took the book. For me, it was a little higgelty piggelty and I just felt I couldn't get into the story as much as I wanted to; as much as I had planned.
I loved the thought of the book and where it took me, the fantasy genre is new for me but this was really good, I really did enjoy it I just felt like sometimes it needed a little more twists, turns and 'oomph'. I feel the characters could've been developed a little more but other than that, I enjoyed it!
Thanks Megan and Netgalley for this ARC!
Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to have an arc of this book.
Some things I enjoyed:
- As a debut novel, I was impressed by this read. The concept was intriguing and well developed which made it quite an easy read.
- The plot reveals and twists weren’t things I anticipated, I was genuinely surprised with some of them.
- The cover is gorgeous. It has to be mentioned here.
Some things I think could be improved:
- Some of the pacing was a little off. Sometimes it was a bit slow and sometimes I felt like it needed a little more umph.
- The characters came off as younger than they were meant to be.
- I struggled a little to gel with some of the characters. I just wasn’t emotionally attached sometimes.
Overall, I don’t think I’d rush to read the next book, but I’d definitely read it at some point.
This book overall was a bit all over the place for me. The storyline itself had potential but the characters felt a bit rushed and the writing a bit simplistic for me. I felt like it could’ve been written in a much more fluid way, as well the world building could’ve been more descriptive. The characters as well fell a bit flat and nothing popped out to me that made me love any particular character. Overall 3/5 stars for me! Thank you Netgalley for the advanced review copy!
Rosie appears to be just a typical college graduate, until she's in an accident and wakes up staring into the face of a stranger. Now everything Rosie thought to be true is a lie. The world she thought was hers is not her own and she must prepare for a battle to fight for the one she originally came from.
I really enjoyed this book! I'm sad it ended with a cliffhanger. The only thing I didn't like was I felt like some parts were a bit rushed. If you like an easy read, young adult, I'd recommend this book.
Thank you, NetGalley and publisher for the ARC.
The Worlds that Separated Us is a is a wonderful and incredibly rich fantasy novel, so well built and fast paced that I wasn't able to put it down till I reached the end. I was absolutely captivated by the atmosphere, and the characters.
This novel submerges the reader in a landscape so imaginative and detailed that the information of the world building/plot never feels forced, and is never difficult to understand or picture in one's mind. I had an enjoyable time reading this and it held my attention the entire way through that I finished it within the day! I enjoyed every page and thought that the plot/story was very unique. Would recommend to anyone!
For a debut author, this was pretty good. It was also fun to read something by an Irish author; I’m not sure I’ve read any of those before.
Rosie has recently graduated from university, but has no idea what to do with her life. She goes to see a concert with a friend of hers, and decides to drive home by herself in the middle of the night, which… doesn’t exactly end well. Rosie finds out that she isn’t from Earth at all, and is thrust into a situation where she doesn’t know who she can trust.
I want to start off by saying that three stars is not a bad rating. It means there are issues with a book, but overall I still enjoyed it and would probably pick up more books by the author. Four stars is a very good rating for me, and five stars very rare. But The Worlds that Separated Us… let’s say there were some major issues. There were some plot holes, a poorly executed love triangle, and magical abilities that didn’t make a lot of sense. But that’s okay. I can deal with that, especially from a debut author. My biggest complaint, however, is the writing. The sentence structures bothered me a lot. Some random examples from the first chapter:
“Caleb opened the passenger door, taking a seat, he instantly began pressing and twisting each button on the dash. I looked over my shoulder checking my mum and dad were ok with Caleb’s request, when Mum gave me an approving nod, I pulled open the door.”
“We took our seats and turned to look closely at the menu, I don’t even know why I look at it, I have it memorized.”
“As soon as we got inside, we set about to our usual routine of turning on the TV to watch a late-night movie.”
I hoped it would get better as the book went on, but it didn’t. I don’t know much about grammar, but I think the author just smushed clauses together with commas in between them. And it happens a lot. I know it’s probably just because the author is Irish and I shouldn’t let it bother me, but it definitely reduced my enjoyment of the book. I probably would have rated it lower, except somehow I still ended up caring about the characters. Which actually surprised me, all considered, and it took the whole book to get me there. The setting… well, there was none? Kind of? We don’t get any descriptions of pretty much any settings, which was sad. The plot was decent though. But at the end of the day, the characters were what saved this for me. For me characters are probably more important than anything else in a book; if I care about the characters I don’t care so much about plot or setting or dialogue, although all of those things are important. I’ll probably read the second book in the series when it comes out.
Mature content: a couple of d*mns. Some making out, a couple plans to go to a cabin alone for a weekend, a couple sleeps in the same bed (nonsexual). Some fairly graphic violence. I might have missed some things as I read this in the middle of my exam period.
I received an arc in exchange for an honest review
Rosie is a girl fresh out of college and she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life yet (pretty relatable). She's dating a boy who her brother doesn't approve of, while her brother is dating Rosie's best friend. Rosie's is working at a restaurant, and after a long night she is in a car accident.
The idea of this book was good. I enjoyed the concept and the fresh out of college feel was very relatable. The plot was fast paced and exciting. Personally I felt like the characters behaved a little young for just having finished college, but as an adult it was still a good read. I'm not a big fan of love triangles but I enjoy them when they're well done, which this one was.
I also LOVE the cover, and it gives me some Adrienne Young vibes. Can't wait for the next book in the series!
I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I'm glad I didn't buy this book for myself because I did not like the writing at all. I got two chapters in and decided not to continue. It felt like a first draft where the author is just trying to get an overall outline out on paper. There were too many page breaks and I felt like nothing was really flushed out.
I felt no connections to the characters and the drama seemed shallow and vague.
I feel bad for not continuing but there was nothing in the first two chapters that grabbed me and made me want to read more.
DNF @ 8%
Maybe it's not completely fair to DNF after the first chapter, but I can tell that this book and I just aren't a good match; I highly doubt reading any further would change my mind.
I have no sense of the characters, their relationships, their personalities, or their deeper motivations beyond common archetypes and what's explicitly stated (told, not shown), so getting emotionally invested in the story is an uphill battle. The narration frequently goes off on tangents for lengthy visual descriptions or reinforcement of archetypes/tropes/cliches or expository infodumps. And the writing style just doesn't really work for me: cliches, stilted dialogue, tons of adjectives and adverbs, tense-switching between past and present, plus countless comma splices and sentence fragments, the last of which isn't necessarily <i>wrong</i> — I don't believe in prescriptive grammar rules, especially for fiction — but in this case felt arbitrary rather than purposeful.
Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of The Worlds That Separated Us in exchange for an honest review.
There are some interesting plot ideas and character dynamics here, but I don't think it's all that enjoyable unless you're either way out of the characters' age brackets or you're really, really willing to suspend your disbelief. Our MC is an adult (I think 21ish) but her inner voice is incredibly juvenile and the rest of the characters also treat her more like a 15/16 year old the whole book to the point of it becoming a distracting discrepancy. Aging her down would have also helped tackle how easily the narrative wants her to wholeheartedly believe everything she's told about her secret true non-human identity because while even 16 year olds would probably be a bit shellshocked and reluctant, you'd at least be able to play it off as her being in a life stage where personal identity is already a lot more vague and fluid. I do think a few things were really well done here, especially with a few character arcs and plot thread conclusions where Jayne strays from what you would normally expect in a book that at first appeared to be full of genre hallmarks.
Rosie graduates university with no idea what to do with her life, only to find out she’s not even from earth. And she’s meant for something more. It’s a story of romance, secrets, and war, where friendship bonds are tested and love can save or destroy. It's an easy and fast read, and the training montages reminded me of Divergent. Rosie is torn between two boys -- one from her life on her home world, and one from her "fake" life here on earth -- and she must decide who truly owns her heart. I would've liked to know more about Rosie's home world so hopefully the world building is expanded in sequels! This paranormal story is perfect for fans of romance.
This story had SO MUCH potential, but it just didn't come to fruition. It kind of felt like I was reading a first draft.
The premise was so interesting, but the pacing was off, rushed in some places (like the ending) and painfully slow in others. There was also a lack of details. What is this other world? What makes atherians different than humans?
The characters came off much younger than stated, like these were supposed to be like 21-254 years olds and I kept thinking they were teenagers.
I did enjoy the story, it just needed a lot more fleshing out than it has.
*Thank you to the publisher for this eARC.
Perfect for fans of the Trylle Trilogy by Amanda Hocking, The Worlds That Separated Us is a YA sci-fi novel about recent college graduate, Rosie, and her discovery that her life isn't what she thought it was, and neither is she. Suddenly she's caught up in a war from another planet while torn between the life she has on Earth- and between two amazing boys.
I know I would have absolutely loved this book as a teenager. It had an interesting storyline and I found myself unable to put the book down. Although some plot reveals felt obvious to me, I was still surprised at times and curious to know more. I liked the characters and would love to see where the series goes.
My main complaint is that the book was almost too fast-paced and rushed in certain parts that I would have liked for the author to go into more. I also wish Rosie had been a high school graduate instead of a college graduate because it would have fit the storyline better and the narrator's voice felt more like that of a teenager's. To me it was obvious which love interest is endgame, but I understood Rosie's struggle between her two separate lives and loves and was definitely reminded of the YA books I read when I was younger. Although it wasn't complex in plot or characters enough to completely draw me in now, this book gave me nostalgia for my teenage reading years and I have to smile at that.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I felt like this book was a little awkward for lack of better word to describe it. It would jump from scene to scene without any cohesiveness. The overall tone of the book felt a bit too childish for the age of the characters and everything felt too rushed. Almost all of the characters feel like they were just dropped into the story instead of integrated into it seamlessly. The plot itself was good, but I just feel like it needed more details. There was really such a lack of world building and character building in my opinion. What little details we did get made Atheria sounds so lovely and I really wish there had been more of that. I know there will be a sequel, but I really don’t think I’ll be reading it.
Thank you to Netgalley and Xpresso Book Tours for sending me an advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.
The plot has so much potential! I really found it interesting and kept me reading just to find out what was what going to happen next. Rosie came off as a lot younger than what the author listed her as. While I found the plot interesting, it was a bit hard to keep reading due to Rosie's character and her brother Caleb. The author definitely has potential and I look forward to see what she comes out with in the future but this book wasn't for me.