Coming Attractions: White Space by Ilsa J. Bick

Coming Attractions is inspired by The Perpetual Page Turner's Save The Date. Coming Attractions showcases a book that is not released for a while that I've read, and gives you a sneak peek (like a pre-review, if you will) as to what I thought about the book, since I can't post the review until closer to the release date.

White Space
Ilsa J. Bick
Series: Dark Passages, #1
Release Date: February 11, 2014
Publisher: Egmont USA
Rating: 3.5 stars
Word Rating: Crazy crazy crazy
Full review to come: February
Reviewed by: Mel

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).

I feel like I should point out that this book will have many many mixed ratings. I for one, have already seen a bucketload of DNFs and another handful of people who gave this 4-5 stars. White Space, is one of those books that start off really crappy and end so amazing you just need to sit down and stare into oblivion for a while.

What didn't work for me:

THE CHANGING OF POVS: We start off with Lizzie, a girl who has some really odd parents. Her family moved into the middle of nowhere after the incident in London. Basically, Lizzie's father can reach into a mirror and pull out characters and put them into his novels. After these really odd few chapters in Lizzie's POV, we change into Emma's. Emma has been having 'blinks' where her world fades out and she can see through the eye's of someone else, a someone like Lizzie. After a back and forth change between these two character's POV, it was pretty good. The entire book was written in third person which made the changing manageable. That's until we start gettting random POVs of characters, they're so random, we even had new POVs coming in at 50% in of the book. Not only were there more POVs than the number of fingers on my hand, but also they were short. Once I was actually getting into the story, the POV would switch and I would get completely agitated and detatched from the novel once more.

THE PACING: Another factor that contributed into why I was not a fan of this book was the pace of this novel. I see that people are going to DNF this novel, not only because of the changing and number of points of views however also because the pace is painful. It is not to say that I was bored out of my brains but I needed answers. I was so damn confused for majority of the novel it made me want to rip all the hairs out of my head. However, some people are going to love the feel of a heavy blanked draped over their heads. To be honest, I enjoyed the feeling too but after some time, I started to wonder what the point of this book was. Nevertheless, the end redeemed this book. In a way.

What did work for me:

BASICALLY EVERYTHING ELSE: The world Ilsa J. Bick creates is truly crazy madness. It's a lot to stomach however as the story goes on and changes--you get used to it. I love the concept and the way it was executed was close to perfection. Maybe a few more answers to entertain the readers, though. White Space is obviously a plot orientated book despite the quantity of points of views. Surprisingly, White Space is a thought-provoking read. You start to ponder the given facts of life more and more, the further we go into the book. Such as; what is reality? Are we actually characters from a book? What would it feel like to be a character from a book anyway?

This one is going to be loved and hated.

 

Full review to come on the blog in February.