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| Book Cover via Amazon.com |
Opinion
Tosca Lee’s fantastic team contacted me and asked me to review this book for her, and I was sent a NetGalley invitation, so I downloaded it and read it to review. I want to thank NetGalley and everyone involved for such a treat.
Let’s talk about my first impressions of the book and the story for this initial part of the review. Immediately I loved the color. It’s simple, it has a lot of beautiful colors mixed in a sea of white, and it spoils nothing that I encountered. When I opened the first pages and got through the first chapter, I was blown away by the initial premise to the story. I live several hours from Waco Texas. Even if you were living under a rock, the words “Waco” would mean something very profound to those who hear it when it’s not about the actual city. It’s almost a verb now when it comes to stand-off precautions between a government and a group of citizens. So let me just start this off with, I’m very impressed with the first chapter and how it threw my mind toward when I was in Highschool watching TV for days on end as the news was covering a crisis. The book never lets up; the story moves from the beginning of terror to something so much scarier but also profound.
We follow the story of Wynter, and to begin with, her life is the worst possible life imaginable. I swear I haven’t ever seen an MC start at a lower point I think. Her story is beautifully done from the beginning to the end and anyone who could not cheer for her, cry for her, or rejoice at her good times, must be soulless and calloused.
For this part of my review I’m going to go into critiques I have from “The Line Between.” For this one, I will be choosing from the “Story Structure, Foundation, and Presentation” portion of my scoring. In comparison to the times I’ve discussed this last month specifically with most of the classics, this is minor. The issue is that there isn’t a space between the paragraphs. That said, what there is are beautiful markers between sections, and also some very lovely indentation. So unlike the issue with endless walls of unbroken text, some very lovely breaks work rather well to keep the eyes from straining as severely.
Let me go into t his part of the review with what I enjoyed about “The Line Between” and first, it’s the perfect grammar and punctuation because the editing on the book is polished and beautiful. Margins are gorgeous as well, and someone took much time to correctly format this book for the e-copy that it reads gracefully. I enjoy this.
Next, I love the plot, sub-plot and secondary sub-plot that was woven together. Initially, this story reads as though it’s just about the life of one person and how she deals with the hand she has. However, slowly and through creative plotting, bits of things begin to flow in. It’s woven into this tapestry that mixes post-apocalyptic sci-fi with YA coming of age and the dangers of cults. I love how this was done. I want so badly when I grow up to become a real author and have books, to be this brilliant with how I layer stories together.
I found that the story of Wynter also had an exciting movement of progression. It went to a weird place, in the end, something I never imagined but should have. Many breadcrumbs take you through the story, but when it comes together, it is glorious. The layout of the story left me thoroughly entertained with how perfectly all the threads of the story came together at the end. Every plot point, sub-plot point and movement of the story, had a perfect ending. This wasn’t one of those novels that leads you to a cliff’s edge and drops you with a “Tune in next book so you can find out what happens” kind of cruddy ending. No, this is a PERFECT ending to a story that is rich and well done. I needed this, a book that restores my faith in modern fiction. This could be a one-off, or maybe there are plans for sequels, but honestly, if there are, I’m buying. That’s what we need more of with stories of this nature. We need books that have the story at heart and tell it so that the reader feels the full range of emotions and is not disappointed at the end for lack of story.
Score
Happily, I am here to let you all know that “The Line Between” scores a 98/100 which is a five-star review on Goodreads and Amazon. Also, it’s going in the “Mrs. Y Recommends” pile because I do. I want others to read this book and learn from it about plot-lines, and bringing stories together. I want everyone to learn about layered stories. This is wonderful!
