Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: speculative fiction
Review: Imagine that you found your soulmate, but that they were in a parallel universe and you could only communicte via email due to a "glitch" in whatever it is that keeps one universe separate from another.
Well, if you're Bee (from our universe) and Nick (whose universe has much better ecology, among other things), you eventually decide that each should seek out the other's doppelganger in their own universe. And then you spend a lot of time soul-searching about whether that's the right thing to do, whether either should tell anyone the whole truth, and a whole lot of other things.
Bee and Nick alternate chapters, with some of their email exhanges at the end of each chapter. The writing is very British, and this American reader had trouble sometimes knowing whether Nick (in the parallel universe) was using slang that we don't have here, or just slang that I didn't know (they also have slightly different grammar rules in the parallel universe?).
This was something of a roller coaster read, dragging in the middle as Nick and Bee go back and forth a lot while they try to figure out a way to be together, then speeding up and almost seeming like a thriller, then slowing back down, before finally reaching a very feel-good conclusion. Despite these inconsistencies, both Nick and Bee come across as fully-realized characters, and the conclusion feels neither unearned nor overly convenient, but rather hopeful, verging on heart-warming.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
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