Review Detail

Every time a person makes a choice, big or small, it creates a parallel world. Delancy Sullivan has been to hundreds of those worlds. She’s a Walker, someone with the ability to hear the frequencies of parallel worlds and, when she gets her Walking license, it’ll be her job to help monitor these worlds to make sure they don’t affect the key world, our world. After an accident on a training mission, Delancy is forbidden from Walking by the Council and her education now relies on her perfect older sister. Always a rebel, Del continues to Walk without their knowledge. On these Walks, she keeps running into different versions of the boy she likes, Simon Lane, who would normally never give her a first look, much less a second. The more she meets these versions of Simon, the more it seems like the Original Simon is noticing her. As she starts falling for him, Del begins to notice strange things happening that should, according to the Council, be impossible and learns that her actions have consequences that could have a real effect on the real world.

This book had a great, complicated world that completely drew me in and never let go. There were quotes from Walker textbooks at the beginning of a lot of chapters and a lot physics woven into the world-building that helped solidify it. The whole concept was really interesting and I’m glad that I enjoyed it. It wasn’t a light read, the complex world and Walker rules meant devoting all attention to it, but it was worth it. It was also long, almost 500 pages, but to me, it was never boring.

I really loved the characters in the book. Del felt like a teenage girl who happened to have abilities instead of feeling like she was only important because of her abilities. She fought with her sister and her mother, could be a little selfish and bratty, but she also really cared about her family and friends. She was smart and strong, a bit reckless and didn’t always think things through. Her relationships felt realistic and also familiar. The trouble-making sister and the golden girl, the overworked parents and their kids, the knows-you-better-than-you best friends, the romance. I enjoyed all of it, especially the friendship between Del and Elliot. Elliot was so sweet and had a geeky side I loved, including his love of a space western movie that had me geeking out with him(I know there’s others out there but in my mind they were totally watching Firefly/Serenity). Sister Addie started off a rule obsessed, serious, ambitious girl but developed as the story went on and had me really excited to see where the author goes with her in the sequel. Love interest Simon was really interesting since there were so many versions of him in the book and his Original took some time to grow on me. Once he started to open up and spend time with Del, he turned out to be really sweet and caring.

The concept was executed so well. The world-building was tight and even when it was complicated, it was always written in a way where I never felt lost. The pacing was never rushed but also not too slow to lose my attention. With all the mysteries of the Council, Del’s parents work, the parallel worlds, I didn’t want to stop reading in case I missed something important in between reads. This was a book that already had be excited for the sequel.