Book Review: White Space

White Space

By: Ilsa J. Bick

Published by: Egmont USA

Release date: February 11, 2014

Genre: YA paranormal/horror

 560 pages

Buy it at Amazon, IndieBound, Book Depository, or Barnes & Noble

Source: ARC kindly provided by publisher

The gore, the horror, the monsters- all of these features are fantastically disgusting in White Space. If this is what the reader is looking for, this book is a great choice. Though I can appreciate these in a well-crafted book, they are not a priority for me as a reader.

The book featured plenty of interesting characters, but there was little relationship development. Because the book was so action-packed, there simply wasn’t downtime for them to be able to connect.  Relationships make or break a book for me, so this was a problem for me as a reader.

To me, the plot seemed disorganized, jumping from character/scene to character/scene. Because the scenes were so disjointed, I didn’t feel the plot arc.  It wasn’t until over halfway through the book that there was any sense to what was going on. Sadly, I fear that most readers will likely not read that far because they won’t be able to make sense of what’s going on. I know that there were a few times that I considered doing just that myself.

I was disappointed with the lack of resolution. We don’t even know if the characters accomplished what they set out to do. All of the “discovery” is left to question; the reader is left to doubt how much of what she learned was truth. Nothing seems better; it’s as if the author purposely leaves us in the white space, between the lines of the book.

My favorite thing about the book is the concept, which is absolutely fabulous. The idea of being able to visit characters between plot points, in the “white space”, is intriguing and innovative. The curiosity of what characters do between the lines of written word- between the moments that are actually scripted out- I love. I am hopeful that it will be re-imagined, and that the next time it’s attempted, the execution is cleaner. 

Summary:

Ilsa Bick’s WHITE SPACE, pitched as The Matrix meets Inkheart, about a seventeen-year-old girl who jumps between the lines of books and into the white space where realities are created and destroyed – but who may herself be nothing more than a character written into being from an alternative universe, to Greg Ferguson at Egmont, in a two-book deal, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (NA).