Book Review: The Girl In Between by Laekan Zea Kemp

Ok, so here's another eBook I picked up for free from Kindle. The premise: a girl, Bryn, with the rare disease KLS (where the sufferer falls into something like a deep sleep for long periods of time) finds herself strolling through her memories instead of being catatonic during her episodes. Everything is safe and familiar until a boy with amnesia washes up on the beach in her dreamland.

I think my interest in this was somewhat superficial. How does someone with a disease like that function on a day to day basis? How does it affect their relationships, schooling, and mental state?

I found the details really interesting, so I have to give the author props for hooking me on that. Also, somewhere kind of late in the game, the book explicitly mentions that Bryn is American but has Colombian heritage. Also, you later find out that the boy is Italian. So, props for having diverse main characters. But, I will mention that from the first pages of the book, I occasionally forgot and thought Bryn was British. I thought maybe that was just some of the author's voice slipping in: an unknown author with a unique name could have any number of origin stories and "accents" that might bleed into their writing. Fine by me but maybe something the author should be aware of.

My main complaint with this novel was not the story itself. That was totally fascinating and I loved it. My problem was the large quantity of mature content. As a YA novel, it felt realistic in that there was a ton of vulgar language, conversations that were drug related or had sexual references. Yea, it's the real world. Coworkers tell unsavory jokes, the guy at the supermarket swears profusely when his debit card malfunctions, TV ads...OK no more ranting...

When I'm reading, that's the world I'm trying to escape. I don't really want to escape into a world where it's just as adult. Another good reason why I read a lot of Christian fiction. Regardless, I powered through the first novel only to reach the end at a totally unexpected part.

This is a strategy I've seen in a lot of eBook freebies. You get the reader hooked then end the novel in with just enough concluded that you can say "Finito!" but other parts of the narrative require the purchase of the sequel to keep you from throwing a tantrum. Well, I'm getting mighty sick of this strategy. Perhaps, I'm a bit sensitive because I recently read this blog post on authors leaving things "unresolved." http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2016/05/i-intend-to-multiply-when-do-i-break.html

Or maybe I'm a bit naive and the author totally thought the narrative arc of the novel was complete but in my opinion there was too many loose ends. Will Bryn die because of the changes to her dreamland? Why did Roman get stuck there in the first place? What's the deal with the shadows? What's the deal with Bryn's grandmother? These all seemed highly important right until the last page when none of them were resolved.

I was so mad (and annoyed by the mature content) I actually resolved NOT to buy the sequel. Unfortunately, Kindle recently updated and when I tried to scroll through to the page where it used to tell you the price of the next book in the series, I accidentally clicked on BuyNow for the next book. *rolls eyes in annoyance at technology*