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Liminal
Isabelle Vang wanted nothing more than to live her life, like any other girl; faeries make that very hard to do.
Isabelle, known to most as Izzy, is trying to settle into her life. She's graduated high school, she's got a part-time job in the next city over, her own apartment, and she wants nothing more than to just be herself. Things are going okay, until her godparents show up on her doorstep one night, and tell her she owes them, and they're giving her a quest.
She's ready to write it all off as a dream, and try to be normal, until her best friend, gone for the last 5 years, shows up on her doorstep, telling her to get ready to go to The Otherworld.
Can Izzy survive the machinations of a faerie world and still come out herself?
Isabelle, known to most as Izzy, is trying to settle into her life. She's graduated high school, she's got a part-time job in the next city over, her own apartment, and she wants nothing more than to just be herself. Things are going okay, until her godparents show up on her doorstep one night, and tell her she owes them, and they're giving her a quest.
She's ready to write it all off as a dream, and try to be normal, until her best friend, gone for the last 5 years, shows up on her doorstep, telling her to get ready to go to The Otherworld.
Can Izzy survive the machinations of a faerie world and still come out herself?
127 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 17, 2017
6 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 12, 2017
i really struggled with whether to give this a 2 or 3 star rating, at first i did rate it a 3 but now i'm coming back to edit it down to a 2.
there was a lot of potential here and i loved the diversity - i don't think there was a single main character that was straight, but the overall plot was ridiculous. izzy mostly just sat around and waited for people to figure things out for her or tell her what to do and then she's just like 'oh okay' and goes to wherever they tell her to and wanders around until the next plot point shows up to literally regurgitate all relevant plot information into her face. like this book is the epitome of telling instead of showing. everything felt ridiculously rushed and this could have easily been stretched into a full length novel, maybe even TWO full length novels to get an actual sense of pacing and character going. it was good for a first novel, but it still feels more like a draft than a finished book.
basically if you're just starved for representation in fantasy books then this might be the book for you, but if you're looking for engaging plot or characters you're going to need to look elsewhere.
there was a lot of potential here and i loved the diversity - i don't think there was a single main character that was straight, but the overall plot was ridiculous. izzy mostly just sat around and waited for people to figure things out for her or tell her what to do and then she's just like 'oh okay' and goes to wherever they tell her to and wanders around until the next plot point shows up to literally regurgitate all relevant plot information into her face. like this book is the epitome of telling instead of showing. everything felt ridiculously rushed and this could have easily been stretched into a full length novel, maybe even TWO full length novels to get an actual sense of pacing and character going. it was good for a first novel, but it still feels more like a draft than a finished book.
basically if you're just starved for representation in fantasy books then this might be the book for you, but if you're looking for engaging plot or characters you're going to need to look elsewhere.
May 29, 2017
I picked this up for the representation in the book and that's what my rating is based on.
This story centers around Izzy, a bi trans woc, who goes on a quest with her best friend Jules, an aroace Latina, to The Otherworld, a place filled with faeries and magic.
It's a short book with not a whole lot of world building and the story itself isn't an epic tale. Don't get me wrong, things go down but because it's such a short book there wasn't a lot of development story-wise.
The characters were good and I liked them but again nothing really stood out to me about them. I did like that the mc Izzy isn't really a heroine. She's thrown into a foreign world and is not that great at navigating it, and I was fine with that because her story wasn't about becoming a Hero, it was about finding herself.
Where this book excels is in it's representation of lgbt+ characters. Aside from Izzy and Jules, we meet Robin an intersex male character, who is somewhat of a love interest for Izzy. There are also a few other side/recurring characters who are nonbinary.
Though both Izzy and Jules are characters of color, there was not much emphasis or development here either.
If this book had been a good 300-400 pages, I would easily give it a 4/5 rating in all areas. Because as the book is, it feels like a good first draft. It just kind of left me wanting more.
But as I said I didn't pick this book up for the story but for the representation, and in that aspect I was not disappointed. So if you're looking for something with a good representation of lgbt+ characters then this is it.
tw: Izzy is deadnamed a few times throughout the book, gore/death (nothing permanently bad happens though to Izzy and her friends)
This story centers around Izzy, a bi trans woc, who goes on a quest with her best friend Jules, an aroace Latina, to The Otherworld, a place filled with faeries and magic.
It's a short book with not a whole lot of world building and the story itself isn't an epic tale. Don't get me wrong, things go down but because it's such a short book there wasn't a lot of development story-wise.
The characters were good and I liked them but again nothing really stood out to me about them. I did like that the mc Izzy isn't really a heroine. She's thrown into a foreign world and is not that great at navigating it, and I was fine with that because her story wasn't about becoming a Hero, it was about finding herself.
Where this book excels is in it's representation of lgbt+ characters. Aside from Izzy and Jules, we meet Robin an intersex male character, who is somewhat of a love interest for Izzy. There are also a few other side/recurring characters who are nonbinary.
Though both Izzy and Jules are characters of color, there was not much emphasis or development here either.
If this book had been a good 300-400 pages, I would easily give it a 4/5 rating in all areas. Because as the book is, it feels like a good first draft. It just kind of left me wanting more.
But as I said I didn't pick this book up for the story but for the representation, and in that aspect I was not disappointed. So if you're looking for something with a good representation of lgbt+ characters then this is it.
tw: Izzy is deadnamed a few times throughout the book, gore/death (nothing permanently bad happens though to Izzy and her friends)
March 7, 2017
I really enjoyed this book - it was a quick read but for the most part it didn't feel as though any parts of the story were missing or glossed over. The concept is fascinating, and it was the diverse cast that made me interested in reading it in the first place. I feel like it didn't live up to it's full potential, however. There were just a few too many misspellings, and sentences that didn't quite fit or make sense. But overall, a good read!
March 16, 2017
Liminal introduces us to the world of Isabelle, who may or may not be entirely human, and her best friend, who definitely isn’t. Strong on worldbuilding and queer representation, it quickly draws you in and pulls you along to the end, once the actual story begins.
Sieracki shows a great deal of promise as a writer, serving up a world that’s full of intricacies, and coherently follows its own internal rules – not necessarily a given in books which deal almost entirely with the overlap between Fae and Mortal worlds. The book stumbles right at the start, however, with a prologue that’s almost entirely unnecessary and almost made me set the book aside for later. A strong editorial hand could have seen the contents of that chapter scattered through the rest of the book, or even entirely eliminated, as there’s nothing in that prologue that isn’t covered later. Likewise, I realized toward the end of the book that I had absolutely no idea what the protagonist looked like, and simply calling the place where Izzy grew up ‘the town’ and ‘the city’ was jarring. Everyone refers to where they grew up by some kind of name, after all.
Isabelle’s troupe is entirely comprised of LGBTQIPA folks – including a positive asexual character and, even rarer, an intersex character. Her own struggles with dysphoria and feelings of attractiveness, as well as her attempts at relationships, feel genuine and true, and young trans readers hoping to see themselves and their internal lives reflected in YA fantasy will find a heroine in Izzy.
Overall, Liminal presents a quick and enjoyable read in a fully-realized world. With a strong editorial pass, the better to even out the writing and presentation of the author’s vision, could truly shine, and would easily fit in the collection of any LGBTQ YA fan.
Sieracki shows a great deal of promise as a writer, serving up a world that’s full of intricacies, and coherently follows its own internal rules – not necessarily a given in books which deal almost entirely with the overlap between Fae and Mortal worlds. The book stumbles right at the start, however, with a prologue that’s almost entirely unnecessary and almost made me set the book aside for later. A strong editorial hand could have seen the contents of that chapter scattered through the rest of the book, or even entirely eliminated, as there’s nothing in that prologue that isn’t covered later. Likewise, I realized toward the end of the book that I had absolutely no idea what the protagonist looked like, and simply calling the place where Izzy grew up ‘the town’ and ‘the city’ was jarring. Everyone refers to where they grew up by some kind of name, after all.
Isabelle’s troupe is entirely comprised of LGBTQIPA folks – including a positive asexual character and, even rarer, an intersex character. Her own struggles with dysphoria and feelings of attractiveness, as well as her attempts at relationships, feel genuine and true, and young trans readers hoping to see themselves and their internal lives reflected in YA fantasy will find a heroine in Izzy.
Overall, Liminal presents a quick and enjoyable read in a fully-realized world. With a strong editorial pass, the better to even out the writing and presentation of the author’s vision, could truly shine, and would easily fit in the collection of any LGBTQ YA fan.
May 20, 2017
2.5 stars.
It was a cute story, with a wide range of diversity, but that's the best part about the book. The pacing was stilted and confusing, and the plot didn't really allow for any character development or even story development to happen. I frequently found myself thinking "that's it?" I wanted to know more about everything, in an exploratory kind of way, rather than point-and-click adventure game style, but the story, and the reader, is left dangling more frequently than not.
It was a cute story, with a wide range of diversity, but that's the best part about the book. The pacing was stilted and confusing, and the plot didn't really allow for any character development or even story development to happen. I frequently found myself thinking "that's it?" I wanted to know more about everything, in an exploratory kind of way, rather than point-and-click adventure game style, but the story, and the reader, is left dangling more frequently than not.
June 28, 2018
Has a lot to like theoretically, but ends up being too scattershot and poorly revised to be very enjoyable. The drama is also a little overblown at parts. A trans female protagonist is a plus though.
October 3, 2017
Liked it
March 9, 2017
Liminal is an interesting and diverse book. I really loved the main cast of characters, they were well-written and I felt like I could identify with them. The plot was also interesting, though I think the main draw of the story was the characters and their interactions. I would love to read more of their adventures!
February 10, 2017
A cute, quick read. I loved the diversity that ran throughout the entire book, and all the sweet moments (the oracle and the witch are my faves), and the romance that explicitly talked about the importance of boundaries and being comfortable with each other. I did feel that there was a lack of a strong plot, and a lot of Izzy waiting around for Jules to talk with her "contacts", and it would have been nice if Izzy had more a hand in the climax . There's a lot of potential here for an even greater book, if the plot were tweaked to make Izzy a little more proactive (not that I blame her for being so thrown off by her quest, I just wish the plot was more developed)
February 12, 2017
yay diverse fantasy! there's a lot of interesting things going on here, but it really could have used more thorough editing, and the pacing was much too fast. so much happens in such a short span of time that it's difficult to get any emotional resonance. still, excited to see what the author does as time goes on!
April 21, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. Isabelle reminds me of someone I love dearly, so that helped, but the contrast of action and inertia and the depth of character were really interesting, especially in such a short work. The formatting was a little off for my taste (I like a good chapter heading) and a few copy-editing errors pulled me out of the story, but I'm definitely excited to see what comes next from this author!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews