ARC Review: Infinite in Between - Carolyn Mackler

Infinite in Between
Carolyn Mackler
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Release Date: September 1st, 2015
Publisher: HarperTeen
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
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Thanks to HarperTeen for the ARC I received at BEA!

Five freshmen, five letters to open after graduation thanks to a freshman orientation activity, and four years separating them from one another. Infinite in Between is an easy read that still brings about its fair share of feelings.

Told through five different points of views and following them through high school, I definitely liked some characters more than others. Mia was by far my favorite. I felt like her voice stood out the most. It was distinct, defined, her distress and angst was palpable as she felt herself live life as the screwball character. Her frustration with her life, her parents, her "best friend," -- they were all artfully done, and Mia's scenes were my favorites. I was rooting for her the whole way.

I think Whitney was my least favorite which might be an unpopular opinion? Whitney is the biracial beauty who's queen bee but is still nice to everyone around her, even if she has to be superficially nice. Whitney isn't a bad person, even if in the beginning she's very quick to judge other people and is so concerned with who her friends are that she ends up losing a lot. She goes through a lot of character growth though. so she understands her mistakes there. She still rubs me the wrong way though and no matter how much I want to. I can't like her character. I love her older sister though. Alicia is three years older and just a more fun character and I liked exploring their relationship too.

Now that we've covered favorite and least favorite, I don't want to spend three more paragraphs going in depth about every single character so I'll just say that I enjoyed all the other characters and every single person's "thing," their hardship. was interesting, and well fleshed out, and enjoyable to read. I feel like there maybe could have been a little more of a shift or a distinction in tone/voice in the characters but when you're writing five characters who all have to age I understand that's hard to do and there definitely was a certain amount, just maybe not as much as I would have liked. However it didn't take away too much because the voice shifted as they got older which drew attention away from the fact that some of the voices sounded a little similar.

I liked that towards the end the story started to get more cohesive, but it takes a long time to get to the point where it reads like one story rather than five individual ones. I personally didn't mind this because I liked the stories of each person and I was willing to wait until the end to see if they met up or if their timelines collided but some readers might want the story to become intertwined earlier on, provided a more solid/stable plot, which is something to think about if you'e planning to read this.

I thought it was a worthwhile read, full of proof that everyone is fighting a battle, and full of cute moments and sad moments and happy moments and lots of other kinds of moments in between.

- Noor

What's your favorite memory from high school?

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