The Space Between the Stars - book review

This is a review of The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett, and I promise I won’t spoil the ending.

I stumbled on this book in a big box store. I was there for groceries but I just happened to be going by the books (It wasn’t out of my way at all, honest!). The Space Between the Stars stuck out like a sore thumb on a table of romance novels--the only adult fiction table there was. I picked the book up thinking there’s no way it was a romance novel (no man chest on the cover). The next book down was the same book, it turned out there was a whole stack of them, so it wasn’t there by accident. Maybe, someone in the distribution chain wanted something different.

The Space Between the Stars takes place sometime in the future when humanity has colonized other worlds. In the moments before the story begins, humanity is decimated by a plague and only a minuscule fraction of people survive. Technically, the setting could be considered post-apocalyptic but it shouldn’t be categorized with the dark post-apocalyptic stories out there. The survivors don’t descend into a Mad Max free for all. It’s not about basic survival, nor about defending what the survivors have (like their lives).

Instead the books is about figuring out how to go on after the apocalypse, including how to live with the loose ends of the world that came before. Even though it was a linear story, it reminded me of Station Eleven. It had a very melancholy tone, which worked for me. The protagonist’s struggle to come to terms with the world she lives in and the world of her past made sense. And I can relate to her need of space to figure things out. Overall, I enjoyed the book.