White Space

This book was weird. In no way is that a bad thing, because this book kept me guessing about what was real--and even about what could be real and if anything was real--right up to the end.

Troubled Emma has far too many problems. Her guardian had a stroke and is no longer physically or mentally there for her, she's got a head full of metal from surgeries, and she keeps having these weird moments where she thinks she's someone else. Those moments are so real that she believes she's another person, living their life, and it isn't until she comes back to herself, minutes or hours later, that she realizes what's happened.

On top of all this, she writes a short story, a short story she's then accused of plagiarizing from an unfinished show more manuscript by a dead writer. But she's never seen that manuscript, she's sure of it. It's in this mood she leaves for a trip and ends up caught in a horrible blizzard.

Then we meet Lizzie, a young girl whose parents are in danger, and whose father might be the danger. And Eric, Casey, Bode, and Rima, who all end up trapped in the blizzard with Emma, and who are in just as much danger as she is.

Sounds like, what, a ghost story? Monsters? Haunted house? It's none of these things. It's about storytelling, and drawing the line between stories and reality. It's about wondering if you're the protagonist or a supporting character, and it's about taking charge of your own story.

This story was surreal and wonderful. I really hope there's more to come.

(Provided by publisher) show less

A dark fantasy with dense science fiction elements that serves up a hefty helping of WTF?!! Hands down one of the most complex yet satisfying YA books I've read. See also Where Futures End.

You start off not knowing where, what, how or why, and that lost feeling is constant through, oh, 75% of the book. Clues in the books and movies alluded to and/or outright referenced are the key to grounding your experience. If you understand them - from the first (Identity) to one of the most referenced (the matrix) to the last (shutter island) - then you'll have a better idea how the story will play out.

If you're someone who reads for a story's payoff AND you enjoy a 500-page Alice in Wonderland-esque journey to that end, White Space is the book for show more you.

If, however, you prefer your stories (and payoffs) quick and obvious, requiring little attention along the way, skip this one. Its labyrinthine structure and plot would likely prove too much work for the sort of reward you seek.

3.5 stars
(only because it was too long; having recognized every reference as well as sensed the unnamed influences I knew early on where this story was going. The world was amazing, no doubt, but the story could've packed more punch minus 150-200 pages.) show less

Okay, so I need to admit something straight out: I had no idea what was going on for the longest time in this book! From the very first page, I was dropped right into this completely CRAZY world and it took a little time to get used to. But I will say this: even when I was confused and hadn’t really grasped why things were the way they were, I was LOVING this story.

This book was like a drug and I couldn’t get enough!

There were always unanswered questions that I’d have to root out the answers to. And by root out I mean I’d just keep reading until they were finally answered for me down the road, because Ilsa is some mad genius that created this INCREDIBLE idea of a story. Inception in book-form really is the perfect description. show more Only instead of dream-worlds there are book-worlds and it all BLEW MY BLEEPING MIND!

I really was scared starting the story that I wouldn’t be able to get into it. I was lost in the unfamiliar and unique terms that were thrown out like I should already know what they mean. And when I first met each of the characters they had the story swapping between their points of view and cutting off in the middle of sentences and tense scenes and it KILLED me. BUT the more I read, the more accustomed to that style of writing I became and the more I appreciated–and ultimately LOVED–it.

Somehow, even though there is a whole SLEW of characters, they were written in a way that they latched onto me and didn’t let go–I love them ALL! Well, all except Chad . . . I didn’t particularly connect with him. But everyone else? Yeah, by seeing the story through glimpses of Tony, Rima, Casey, Eric, Lizzie, Bode, and Emma’s perspectives? I was EATING IT UP!

Another fun note about the story: if you’re squeamish reading about blood and gore, this book is going to test those boundaries. MAN does it get graphic! And you know what? The twisted side of me was absolutely LOVING it, it kept it vivid and gripped my attention tight. The whole entire story was chock-FULL of action–all action, all the time.

So. Cool.

This story is so dark and has such depth, I can’t get over how intrigued I am by it still. I keep thinking about the story even after I’ve already finished it, going back over scenes in my mind because this book makes you think. If you haven’t read White Space yet, I would undoubtedly recommend that you do!

4.5/5 stars;) show less

White Space (Dark Passages #1) by Ilsa J. Bick is easily going to be one of the best fantasy/horror novels I will read all year and the year has just begun!

Teenage Emma Lindsay has metal plates in her head, no parents and an eccentric catatonic artist for a guardian. But those are Emma's regular problems, her stranger problems come when she blinks away and drops into other lives and other times. Other lives that have Emma wondering which is real and which is not.

The Emma writes a story called White Space about a group of kids stranded in a haunted house during a blizzard. A story that mirrors an unfinished work by a long dead writer known as Frank McDermott.

"...I don't care Frank. Mom shivers as if she just can't get rid of the really show more bad dream clinging to her brain, but keeps seeing it happen again and again, no matter where she looks. Do what you have to, but kill them. Kill the book.
What do you think you just did, Meredith? You can destroy the manuscript or my notes, but it's still there. Dad presses a fist to his chest. The book's inside. You'd have to kill me..."

Frank McDermott's story is about characters who fall out of different books and jump off the page, much as it seems happens to Emma when she blinks. And now, stranded in a blizzard with a group of young strangers, she is wondering if she is doing exactly what Frank McDermott wrote. If her reality has somehow become the story.

"...Frozen in place, she watches the red slink as it seeps across the road, never spreading, never veering, but creeping up the curb and onto the sidewalk, heading straight for the book. As soon as her blood touches the cover, dragging itself like a moist crimson tongue along the edges, curls of steam rise-and the book...quickens.
It's like my blink, when I saw Lizzie's dad-Frank McDermott-at the Dickens Mirror. Except it is a book, not a strange mirror, drinking her blood, greedily sucking and feeding, the pages pulsing and swelling, the covers bulging...and then..."

Emma, along with Eric, Casey, Bode, Rima, and a very special little girl, Lizzie must survive the story that is being written around them. A story more real then the world they live in. Their reality is found not in the written words, but in the white space in between them.

White Space is imaginative and brilliant. Ilsa J. Bick has come up with a grandiose concept and plotted and scored it well. Characters from various books who end up in one tale, unsure of what their reality is and convinced that they are real people. But the question that truly rise is which reality is true and will they live long enough to find it.

Bick often refers to a 2002-2003 movie called Identity with John Cusack and Ray Liotta. The story is about a group of people who end up at a road side hotel ala Bates Motel and begin to be murdered. There is a killer among them but what they don't realize is that they are in fact different pieces of one man's personality with one trying to become the dominant personality by killing the other's off. Pick it up, it is freaking awesome.

White Space is very much like that. The lines between what is real and what is not are blurred and bleed freely into one another. In less gifted hands this story would drown in the mire of its own confusion. But Black is too good of a writer to allow that to happen. In her hands it is entertaining and suspenseful. She engages her readers and knows full well that when you write a novel of this size it is a commitment from both the writer and the reader and Ilsa J. Bick holds up her side of the bargain.

White Space is the first novel by Bick I have ever read but I will freely admit I was already impressed by this author. I met her last year at the Tucson Book Festival, she was signing her books and greeting her readers, most of them young adult readers; all with her arm in a cast and sling. But she was there. In the Arizona heat, taking time to care for her readers.

White Space by Ilsa J Bick is a terrific read! show less

From hence forth, Fridays will be known as the day when I catch up with reviews I’ve been neglecting the whole week while being fully occupied by dodging puke, wiping up poop and cleaning up smashed banana that has suspiciously found itself on every surface of my house. (I know, you’re thinking, you’re a mom – deal with it – but I, myself, am horrified to find that I suddenly have no “me” time. Not even twenty minutes to write up a review of a book I finished more than a week ago. Shame, shame on me. But, look at it this way, my impressions of the book has had a chance to marinate or ferment in a week's worth of tiny person waste).

This is the kind of book that you love reading – one that you read anxiously and eagerly, show more completely engaged in the world of the novel – and then only after reading the whole thing, do you look back, surprised with the honest realization that you don’t actually necessarily understand what you just read. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. This massive YA novel started off by disorienting the reader, throwing them headfirst into the dark, murky world of White Space without a life preserver or translation guide. It is only natural that most readers expect some closure, some answers, after 560 pages, but, by then, you’ve come to realize that natural doesn’t really apply to this book. Of course, this is only the first book of the series, BUT I’ve come to expect at least firm footing, a solid understanding of what happened – what will continue to happen – in the subsequent books in this series. I can honestly say the ending left me unsure of what was real and what was this book’s vision of some type of authorship – either intentional or delusional. (If I’m not making sense, read the book, and then you’ll understand me perfectly. Or at least catch my drift).

This book draws a plethora of pop culture, sci-fi/fantasy comparisons, the most prevalent being some cross between Inkheart (which I loved – and understood) and The Matrix (which I haven’t seen in forever but remember somewhat affectionately if not foggily). The author herself repeatedly draws attention to this comparison, but, what’s more, she draws comparisons between this world and that Philip K. Dick and Lovecraft (which I thought was lofty, ambitious and advanced for just another YA alternate universe/future book). Also, strangely enough, there were repeated references to that creepy late nineties/early 2000s movie Identity (which I remember may embarrassingly recall enjoying for its twists and turns amid all the corny, killer-loose-in-a-motel-suspense). Overall, I was impressed by the ways that she deftly blended these genres and pop culture to produce this epic piece of (slightly confusing and always ambiguous) YA.

Characters are loose in the dark passages between the White Space, dodging the horror that has been unleashed and manipulated by the Whisper Man, falling inbetween Nows, trying to find their true stories without meeting their end. What is real? What is only a creation, a figment of an troubled author’s mind? Do characters and plots exist independently of their creator, fully-formed things with lives and loves of their own, just waiting to be plucked from the mirror and pulled onto White Space for all to observe? I can’t really go into a full description of the plot, but suffice it to say, prepare to have your perception of the book shift several times before coming to an unresolved ending.

Yes, I want more. I may be opening myself up to more uncertainty and frustration but I just can’t resist. Personally, I want to know more about these eight murders that keep echoing through the different Nows. I will have to revisit this book before following through with the second, almost guaranteed. It calls for a second reading. At least I’ll have fun trying to guess what type of resolution – or more likely – what kinds of new questions and complications are raised by the sequel.

Oh yeah - thanks NetGalley - you're the cat's pajamas. show less

Lizzie and the Mirror

arc received from EgmontUSA through Edelweiss

Trigger warnings for this book: cutting, suicide and gore.


There are so many amazing things about White Space, but what pulled me into it was the narration. When it starts it’s narrated by a little girl: with a little kid’s linguistic idiosyncrasies and… I really can’t explain why, but it makes everything a hundred times creepier.

So let’s start: there is a little girl, Lizzie, a mother who dabbled in some really dark stuff, and a father who is dabbling in some really dark stuff.
You see, when Lizzies father creates a story he doesn’t just come up with it, he reaches into a mirror and through scratches and gouges pulls out characters from the White Space and show more into his Now. And sometimes these characters don’t stay in the books. They come outside and hide in the house.
When the story starts one such character was doing just that:

“A footprint. On the wall. That’s when Mom feels someone watching, too.”

Lizzie’s mother creates her own characters out of blown glass, the Peculiars. Lizzie tried making one once but she set the temperature wrong and the glass melted into a monstrosity: the monster doll who is not very… nice.

“The inside of the monster-doll’s head is all gluey-ooky, the thoughts sticky as spiderwebs.”

This is all incredibly spooky; it’s like High Octane Coraline. There is also a cat, Marmalade, who indulges in a time-honoured cat tradition of being an asshole and doing this:

“Marmalade sometimes stares, not at birds or bright coins of sunlight but the space between, while his tail goes twitch-twitch. The cat sees something Lizzie doesn’t.”

From that we jump to Emma’s POV. Emma has a metal plate in her head and killer migraines which announce themselves with spidery cracks into reality and she gets to see Lizzie’s Now. She had also lived with a father-figure painter who pulled creatures from the White Space into his canvas.

The plot jumps from Lizzie to Emma and back again, then starts including a bunch of other POVs. Personally, I loved Lizzie’s side of the story, and felt that Emma’s side and all the other characters’, though compelling, dragged a bit. Lizzie’s story was so much creepier, perhaps because, as I said, she was a little kid and saw and described things in a peculiar way that just wormed itself in to the reader’s brain.

I’m not the type of reader who appreciates switching POV every chapter, it keeps me from getting attached to the story. Every time you really start getting into it, SWITCH!, you’re reading about someone else doing something else. All in all there were about 7 POVs, sometimes it cuts from one to another in the middle of a sentence. That’s cool for a movie script but for an actual book it’s just incredibly exasperating. I, personally, started to lose interest in several characters. I wished the book was only about Lizzie and her family (which would have been way more than enough!), and had to force myself not to skip ahead when the focus wasn’t on them.

But the plot is pretty good! And it brought up a bunch of questions regarding parallel universes, the nature of reality, and space, and time, and who we really are. And when most of the POV characters meet up on the mountain and realise the fog is hiding something… It’s worth reading!

I must admit, I was very frustrated throughout the book, as I said, the multiple POVs really do not work for me, but I was never, ever bored! And while being entertained was enough for me, it won’t be for everyone, you have to go for a really, really long time through lots of confusing questions and questions and questions to get some answers literally when you’ve gone through 88% of the book.

If anything this book may be too ambitious, it tried to do too much, too many characters, too many stories – to be fair, all of them intertwined, but there was too much going on.
But like I said: it was never boring. All in all, though, this would make a better movie than a book. show less

We meet Emma and her friend as they are driving north into a blizzard in Wisconsin. To all those outside Emma’s head she appears to be an intelligent normal college girl, we however get to see inside. And while Emma wants nothing more than to be normal, she isn’t. Ever since her experience ‘down cellar’ (which she tries to keep locked up and never think about) she has had ‘blinks’ or episodes where she loses time. She comes back to herself, like waking up only she has obviously has not been sleeping. It doesn’t seem to be noticed by her friends and she just tries to live with it the best she can.

The reason for the trip North is from a terrible surprise she got in class. She was given an assignment to write a story in the show more vein of a famous horror author, Frank McDermott. She was more successful than she could have ever imagined. Apparently she tapped the same muse as McDermott, since she wrote a story that was almost word for word the same as one of McDermott’s unfinished and unpublished works. Her Professor called her in on plagiarism and has threatened to expel her.

We also meet Lizzie, through Emma’s blinks. Lizzie is a little 5 year old girl, who happens to be much wiser than she appears. We come to see her dad is Frank McDermott and his talent for writing incredible horror stories comes with a little help. Dark help.

The story spins around these two characters and they draw others in. Strange things keep happening and stranger explanations are postulated. It has a Lovecraftian feel where everyone seems to have trouble holding on to their sanity.

The writing was excellent, the descriptions vivid. The puzzle was intricate, and while the first stage was solved in this book, the ending is meant to pull you back for the next stage. I suspect that people who really enjoy psychological horror will love this one. I don’t particularly like this type of storytelling (not the horror, how the characters reacted to everything plus some other things that might spoil the story) and I couldn’t give it more than 3.5 stars. If it wasn’t for the great writing, it would have been a bit less. It is an emotional roller-coaster and left me wrung out.

3.5 stars show less