I do love a good dystopian vibe and I think this one was executed well. I found the writing to be easy-to-read and the story was engaging. I also quite liked the MC!

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an early copy of this book!

I was fortunate enough to be able to read The Space Between Worlds as a . . .Read Now, I believe, and then I eagerly purchased a copy of it to own. Those Beyond The Wall I am more fortunate to read early, but I will have to wait to purchase this. I do think that being able to read it this month is extremely sharp, with a further anger of institutional racism in the United States.

It is difficult to not draw comparisons between the ways that governments have wrecked environmental destruction and denied shelter to those they ensured were in more-than-harm's way. It would be more difficult to not bring at least a name to any of them, or bring a name to many of the stories given-- all those Mr. Wills could be, the brutality of Wiley City guards, the inhumanity of those closing the gates and making murder on those who only are trying to survive. And the watchers, and those who are the only ones doing something, carving out their own.

Mr. Scales was a smaller character in TSBW, and it was incredible, to see the differences between herself and Cara. Cara is desperate, secretive, guilty, and ambitious. Mr. Scales? Mr. Scales is *angry*, loving, fiercely loyal, and extremely community-oriented. Her brother, her friend, her people-- and not in that order because of how much she loves all. A deeper, different look into this world's Ashtown from a Nik Nik-loyal runner, from one much closer to Nik without the trauma Cara had and with a far more positive view.

Ashtown is also about the stories-- what they say, how they mean, and why it matters. They do not have to be strictly truthful to have the understood meaning. They do not have to agree for people to know what happened. Three variations of the same story make it all true, because this is what people said, what people heard, and what they took from it, and how it set a fire in people.

Wiley City and Ashtown were not at peace. They never were, and Ashtown must survive without Wiley City killing them.