Cara grew up in the wastelands, the dusty resource-desert the lower classes call home, but now, as an important commodity to the Eldridge Institute, she lives in Wiley City where the skyscrapers loom tall and the streets are fully swept. But Cara’s path to citizenship is tied to dangerous work traveling the multiverses and gathering data for the Institute. This is how she learns that survival makes her unique among her doppelgängers, who seem fated to die young, and valuable to her employer which seeks access to as many alternate worlds as it can reach. But there’s one mysterious Cara death among the many that catches the traverser’s attention and makes her wonder if there’s something more urgent and personal to be learned from her assignments, and if the game afoot has broad and catastrophic implications.
Beyond Cara’s survival instincts and tenacity giving scenes that thrilling edge, the chemistry between Cara and her handler, Dell, crackled on the page. I kept anticipating scenes between the women, and that moment where flirtation blossoms into romance. Moreover, they symbolize that being allowed to live in Wiley City doesn’t mean you’re given the same privileges and standing as your neighbors, or that people will forget or won’t care where you came from. Cara certainly can’t. Expect a hearty helping of commentary on class with your thrilling adventure, and when you’re done with this book, you can immediately pick up book two, Those Beyond the Wall.
