About the Book
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Authors:
- Amie Kaufman
- Meagan Spooner
- Genres:
- Boy-Girl Romance
- Fantasy
- Science Fiction
Cover Story: Purrfect, Part 2
BFF Charm: Heck Yes x 2
Talky Talk: Between Worlds
Bonus Factors: Faith, Tami Taylor Award For Awesome Motherhood, Star Trek Cameo
Anti-Bonus Factors: Mind Control, Dan Scott Award For Awful Parenting
Relationship Status: I Believe In You
(Caution: This review contains spoilers for The Other Side of the Sky (The Other Side of the Sky #1).)
Cover Story: Purrfect, Part 2
Nimh and North still look the way I imagined them, including all the details that have changed since they first met. He wears her colors (her people’s symbol of devotion, aww!) and carries her spearstaff, while she controls the Mist as she learned to do in the last book. The cat is fluffed up as if ready to fight, and his tail still goes through the title letters. The sky looks darker than it did before, but these three look ready to weather any storm.
The Deal:
The magical cataclysm at the end of The Other Side of the Sky left North and Nimh worlds apart. With Nimh suffering from memory loss up in North’s floating kingdom of Alciel, and North frantically searching for a way to reach her from below, the divide between them feels wider than ever. But Alciel and the surface world are connected in deeper ways than anyone understands, and ancient prophecies and modern politics are about to set them on a collision course – literally.
BFF Charm: Heck Yes x 2
Nimh’s amnesia may be a convenient plot twist to keep her from figuring out too soon what’s going on, but it also proves that her compassion and strength are real, whether she remembers being a goddess or not. She knows Prince North is alive even though he’s been declared dead, that something is deeply wrong at the palace and that she has to help. She follows her intuition to search for answers, even if it means confronting something so terrible her own mind shielded her from it. As for North, although he starts out with tunnel vision about wanting to find Nimh, he soon starts listening to the local priests and elders when they challenge him to follow her example while he does. He takes care of her garden, keeps her cat company, takes steps to rebuilding an old friendship, and widens his research with a view to helping two worlds instead of just one person.
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
Spoiler alert: They touch. Finally! Nimh is not the only one who got light-headed for a second there. But even with the taboo broken, it’s not that simple. They still have a political and religious crisis to deal with, not to mention North’s lovers, Miri and Saelis, whom Nimh comes to know and respect. These two young leaders are so used to thinking of everyone else before themselves that their happy ending, when it arrives, is more than earned.
Talky Talk: Between Worlds
When Nimh says to her hostess: “Come, grandmother, this fire will ease the ache in your bones,” the older woman affectionately calls her “little poet”. When Miri curses someone out, she says “shove it over the rim”, which might sound harmless to us, but on a floating island, would actually be fatal. When North finds a malfunctioning computer down on the surface and has to explain what’s wrong with it to his local companion, he uses a metaphor: “The ink on its scrolls has faded.” Given that they’ve lived apart for a thousand years, it’s surprising how close their languages still are, but they’re just different enough that you can hear it.
Bonus Factor: Faith
The power of faith is a central theme in this story, not despite, but because of its agnostic worldview. Nimh is a goddess because her people believe she is. When she doubts herself, it’s North who reminds her of this. Even though he was raised without religion, he believes in her as a person, and she believes in him. Miri and Saelis, too, believe in North so strongly that they’re willing to help Nimh – a stranger with uncanny powers – as soon as she tells them he’s alive.
Bonus Factor: Tami Taylor Award For Awesome Motherhood
Anasta, Princess Consort of Alciel, doesn’t give up hope even when her wife, Queen Beatrin, falls under the spell of a cult leader (see “Mind Control” below) and North, their only son and heir, is presumed dead. I can’t go into detail because of spoilers, but North is right when he says people underestimate Anasta at her peril.
Bonus Factor: Star Trek Cameo
The computer with the “faded ink” North discovers contains a hologram of a bald man in a black and teal uniform, with a “superior expression” and the voice of a “professor being made to teach children”. Hello, EMH Mark One from Voyager and Prodigy! It’s good to see you, even if you are as pompous as ever.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Mind Control
Since her last battle against Nimh, rival goddess Inshara has learned how to take over people’s minds and make them worship her. It’s a sharp contrast to the willingly given (or rejected) faith they have in Nimh, and it’s terrifying – especially when North’s mother, the Queen of Alciel, joins the cult and no longer cares whether her son is alive.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Dan Scott Award For Awful Parenting
Again, spoilers – but Inshara has her reasons for being desperate enough for attention to try to brainwash an entire city, and two of those reasons are her parents.
Relationship Status: I Believe In You
As a good book, mind you, not a Bible, but that’s enough.
Literary Matchmaking
The Other Side of the Sky (The Other Side of the Sky #1) is the prequel to this book.
Touch of Death by Taylor Munsell is another romance in which the love interests are not allowed to touch.
Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon places the theme of overcoming isolation in a contemporary setting.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review.
