ARC Review: Thin Space by Jody Casella

Title: Thin Space
Author: Jody Casella
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Release Date: 10th September, 2013
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Goodreads | The Reading Room

Ever since the car accident that killed his twin brother, Marshall Windsor has been consumed with guilt and crippled by secrets of that fateful night. He has only one chance to make amends, to right his wrongs and set things right. He must find a Thin Space—a mythical point where the barrier between this world and the next is thin enough for a person to step through to the other side. 

But, when a new girl moves into the house next door, the same house Marsh is sure holds a thin space, she may be the key—or the unraveling of all his secrets.

As they get closer to finding a thin space—and closer to each other—Marsh must decide once and for all how far he’s willing to go to right the wrongs of the living…and the dead.

Review by Nara

And just like that, I knew. Two seconds earlier I'd thought I was in pain. But that pain was nothing. Nothing. Because now I knew. My brother was dead.

Despite the interesting premise and the awesome line above (which is the last line of the prologue), the majority of the Thin Space was rather average and, quite frankly, boring. At the half way point nothing had happened. I kid you not absolutely nothing had happened. At the three quarter mark, still nothing had happened except that I was bored out of my mind and pretty much ready to get the whole thing over and done with.

Main character Marsh was very meh. I couldn't really connect with him, couldn't really understand what was going through his mind- despite the book being written in first person perspective from his point of view. Love interest Maddie- also meh. The characters just didn't have that much depth to them. They certainly weren't engaging enough to support the plot and the book. If they had been more interesting, I might have been able to overlook the boring plot, but as it stood, all they did was serve to compound the mediocrity of the plot. The romance was okay, I guess, but it didn't have me swooning or anything. Probably because the characters were so crappy.

I didn't really get the idea of "thin spaces". I mean, I understood what they were, but not really the mechanics of them. Can anyone dead just randomly flow through them? Could I go into the world of the dead through them? Where exactly do they go through to? Perhaps this just wasn't explained properly in the book (possible) or I was just so freaking bored that I didn't care to read the explanations properly/accidentally skimmed over them (probable).

But then BAM at the very end of the book, an unexpected event arose. One that had me going, wait, what? WHAT THE HELL!? I have to say, the ending redeemed the book. Slightly. It was still boring as f*** so it's getting a three stars from me. Without the twist at the end though, it definitely would've gotten a two. To be honest, I personally wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Unless you don't mind really boring reads where nothing happens, in which case, kudos to you.

It was okay

Ratings
Overall: 5/10
Plot: 2/5
Writing: 3/5
Characters: 2/5
Cover: 3/5