A World Between

by Emily Hashimoto

A college fling between two women turns into a lifelong connection--and spells out a new kind of love story for a millennial, immigrant America.

"A sweetly poignant look at the transformative power of young love." --O, The Oprah Magazine

In 2004, college students Eleanor Suzuki and Leena Shah meet in an elevator. Both girls are on the brink of adulthood, each full of possibility and big ideas, and they fall into a whirlwind romance. Years later, Eleanor and Leena collide on the streets of San Francisco. Although grown and changed and each separately partnered, the two find themselves, once again, irresistibly pulled back together.

Emily Hashimoto's debut novel perfectly captures the wonder and confusion of growing up and growing closer. Narrated in sparkling prose, A World Between follows two strikingly different but interconnected women as they navigate family, female friendship, and their own fraught history.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Romance, LGBT, Contemporary, Lesbian, Feminism

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 8, 2020

About the author

Emily Hashimoto's debut novel A World Between follows two queer women of color over the course of thirteen years as they grow away from and towards each other. O, The Oprah Magazine said it was a "sweetly poignant look at the transformative power of young love" and Kirkus Review called it a "sweeping debut novel about the ever changing nature of identity and love." Cosmopolitan UK praised it as one of the best books by LGBTQ+ authors.

Emily's personal essays have appeared in Out, Electric Literature, Catapult, Literary Hub, and The Rumpus, centering intersectional narratives. They’ve received fellowships from VONA, Queer | Art, VCCA, Art Omi, and Baldwin for the Arts. Emily lives with their wife and child in Southern California.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my freaking goodness, this book felt like Normal People except with two queer women of color who both grow and change in meaningful, beautiful ways. A World Between has that same slice of life relatability mixed with dialogue that feels both everyday and addictive, made mesmerizing due to the strength of our two protagonists, Eleanor Suzuki and Leena Shah. In 2004, Eleanor and Leena meet in college, in an elevator, in an exchange that involves Leena studying for an exam and Eleanor entranced by Leena’s presence. This encounter sets the stage for an intense, passionate romance: Eleanor more the enthused pursuer and Leena returning her affection, steadfast and rational. They encounter each other again in the streets of San Francisco in 2010, and they cross paths once more in 2017, after gay marriage’s legalization and amidst 45’s presidency. As a 25-year-old myself, I so loved how this novel captured these two women from their tempestuous early 20s to their 30s, how they fall into and out of each other’s orbit, how they mature in both messy and triumphant ways.

I loved the relationship between Eleanor and Leena because Emily Hashimoto developed them both as full, three-dimensional characters in and of themselves. I’m going to reference Normal People again, not to put down Normal People but just because I find the similarities between these two novels striking. Both novels feature intense, somewhat all-consuming romantic bonds between two people that feel magnetizing to read. However, Eleanor and Leena felt more fully-developed as individual characters in addition to their romance, whereas Connell and Marianne struck me as flatter on their own and that their romance carried their story man than they did.

When I write that Eleanor and Leena both feel developed, I mean that in the sense that they each have goals for their lives beyond one another, as well as separate growth trajectories as characters even if their relationship with each other influences those trajectories. Eleanor is a biracial woman who comes out relatively early in life, is a bit obsessed with romantic love, and wants to make a difference in the lives of marginalized people (e.g., queer folx, girls and women, those at the intersections of those identities). Leena is a South Asian woman who wants to help people through medicine and public health, who is afraid of coming out because of her family, and who leans away from romance with women because it stirs up wild, intense feelings within her. These queer women of color felt developed with such care and intelligence, with distinct voices and personalities, whose characterizations are in no way in service to the male gaze or to be digestible to heterosexual readers. I so appreciated how Hashimoto incorporated their racial identities, sexual orientations, and more in a way that elevated them as people I grew fond of, not just to make A Point (you will, thankfully, not find the bury your gays tropes here either.)

I felt intoxicated by Eleanor and Leena’s relationship and all the drama within it to the point where this book would have gotten a 4-star rating with ease. What really made me fall in love with A World Between is how Hashimoto shows how they both grow as people. Their growth felt so painfully human, full of missteps and hesitations, regrettable starts and frustrating stops. At times I wanted to say to Eleanor, “omg, you really need to learn how to love yourself without a romantic relationship with a woman.” At other times I wanted to tell Leena, “omg, your refusal to confront and accept your sexual orientation is actively hurting Eleanor to the point where I’m screaming on my couch in my living room waiting for you to own your gayness as much as I and she do.” This journey is what makes the payoff toward the end of the novel all the more fulfilling, when both characters finally grow and change in small yet oh-so-significant ways. By the end of this book, I trusted Hashimoto with my heart, fully, because I could see how much love and tenderness she invested in these characters.

Definitely one of my top 2020 reads and top fiction novels ever! On a personal note, A World Between is another one of those right book, right time reads for me. As a gay man of color in my mid-20s, there’s a lot I don’t share in common with Eleanor and Leena, though their journeys did make me feel wistful for the romance I have yet to encounter in my life. Yet, I feel grateful to Hashimoto for gently reminding me of a powerful truth, that regardless of which guys I thirst for and which guys thirst for me, there’s one thing that will always fill my cup up first: my love and acceptance of myself.

[Sonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have so many feelings about this book, and unfortunately, most of them are not good. I was so underwhelmed by this book that it made me frustrated and sad. I think that this book is so melodramatic it takes away from the really cool aspects of it like the intersectional identities of the two main characters. Additionally, I think the prose is not good, the descriptions are boring and overdone, and the book is about 200 pages too long. I found myself so consistently rolling my eyes that I started writing in the book: “eyeroll.”

My biggest issue with this book was that it is billed as a book that explores the nuance of queer sexuality through the lens of multi-dimensional women with identities who are not as represented in media and especially queer media: an Indian-American queer woman and a Japanese-Jewish lesbian. However!

1- Just because you have a character with an intersectional, under-represented identity does not make a nuanced, complex, or well-written character. And it certainly does not suddenly make the prose more well-written, the plot progression more interesting, or the description and details more compelling. I don't know, I'm not Indian American or Japanese American, but I am Jewish American and I did not feel seen in this book, and I did not feel like the fact that the character was Jewish added to the book at all.

2- Something potentially for more thought: If you have a character that is blatantly problematic, is it the responsibility of the author to somehow correct for that character? Does the author need to show either through other character dialogue, description, or follow-up that the character is purposefully problematic but the author does not hold those same views and is aware of what they are writing? The character Eleanor is blatantly biphobic to Leena multiple times throughout the novel, which is SO WEIRD because this book is about the COMPLEXITY OF QUEER IDENTITY! And I did not feel like Hashimoto had any type of follow-up, which made me question if Hashimoto is herself biphobic. I would love to know what other people feel about this.


I really don't understand why so many people love this book. I feel like I was reading a YA book that was not very good that I did not sign up for. I'm very disappointed by it, and maybe me saying something will bring other people to talk about it more? Phoebe and I are going to be discussing this book for bookclub, so I'm interested to hear what other people thought.

[S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit I’m kind of blown away by this book. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a queer centred book like this before and I’m not sure any review I can write can fully do this book justice in explaining why you should read it. I went into this expecting another quick easy wlw romance and it’s safe to say that isn’t what I encountered. However, I was not disappointed by this at all.

This is a book full of diversity, centred on two queer Asian American women. Eleanor’s heritage is Japanese and German Jewish, whilst Leena is of Indian descent. The storyline covers many difficult family situations for them both and the depth of the writing about cultural impact on life defining decisions really spoke to me. It’s also packed full of queer culture and full of the realities of life for queer people from their college years through to their mid-thirties.

At its heart this book is about love, lust, relationships and friendship. The way the story is told we meet the main characters at college in Boston. This begins an inter connected journey for them both, wherein we get to catch up with them periodically at different points of their lives. This time shift is done really well, as is the change in viewpoints so we get to understand each character in more depth. The timeline means we experience the MCs viewpoints on many important landmarks in recent American history, which only aids in bringing you into the narrative further.

This book is long, but it’s worth it. A word of warning, the beginning of the book is quite jarring as you get used to the language used, but stick with it. It’s been a long time since a book left me speechless and it’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts after the ending but I would happily recommend this to anyone looking for something different to the usual wlw romance.

I received an e-ARC via Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review.

[Ebony Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Messy, beautiful, inherently (and gorgeously) queer. I enjoyed this novel very much.

A World Between tells the story of Leena and Eleanor, two young women of colour who meet in college and fall into an intense and intoxicating romance. However, Leena and Eleanor are not only very different people, they also have very different relationships to their queerness and their understanding of self. Eleanor is bold and boisterous and proud of her lesbian identity and wants to shout it from the rooftops, while Leena is quieter, methodical, and has not yet been able to fully understand her queerness. The story unfolds and we follow their complex paths, both as individuals and as lovers/friends to one another. The novel features some wonderful writing, including painfully relatable and astute observations about life and all the kinds of relationships that make it worth living. The story is at times mundane, at times melancholy, at times so very sensual...and it all worked to paint an exquisite portrait of two women as they figure out what it means to live, and what it means to love.

I discovered this book via a beautifully written review of one of my favourite reviewers on Goodreads, Thomas. I implore you to read his review if you're considering reading this book.

4.5 stars.

[Alwynne]

DNF - Emily Hashimoto’s called this her ‘queer when harry met sally’ with the focus on a rollercoaster relationship between two women of colour in contemporary America, given an additional spin by Hashimoto’s exploration of ideas taken from Adrienne Rich,

“I was thinking about her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality,” where she talks about the lesbian continuum and how women can exist on different parts of it during the course of their life, and that it’s about the intimacy between women. I wanted to pay homage to that. So for me, there’s this mostly fun book about two women over the course of thirteen years, and it has this theoretical feminist underpinning.”

A World Between opens in 2004 when anxious but feisty, politico and Women’s Studies major, Eleanor Suzuki falls head over heels for uptight, career-focused, pre-med Leena Shah. Despite their mutual attraction and good sexual chemistry, things don’t work out between them. We then meet them again at intervals over a period of years, with the narrative alternating between Eleanor and Leena’s perspectives as, like Schopenhauer’s famous porcupines, they awkwardly shift between intimacy and distance and back again.

But although there was a lot to like in theory, in practice this just didn’t meet my expectations. It was definitely refreshing to come across a well-researched, woman-centred novel with such a diverse cast of characters, that namechecks Audre Lorde and bell hooks instead of shoe designers and upmarket brands. But, at least for me, this read a little too much like an exercise in box-ticking, from the opening set in the ‘veggie, militant college days’ to the ‘what do I do with my life’ immediate post-education years.

Part of the issue here may lie in typical first-novel territory, certainly I felt that Hashimoto was trying to tackle too many areas at once: the dilemmas faced by a particular generation, issues around ethnicity and identity, shifts in queer culture, how we define ourselves or are defined by others, a coming-out narrative, pressures of family, religion, work, particular cultural expectations around lifestyle, marriage, children….all of these things came up and more besides, and that’s only in the first half. I also found the pacing awkward, too much exposition at the expense of elements to drive the plot forward and a definite tendency towards ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing.’

There was a sense of uncertainty too about what this was actually supposed to be. Is it a light, frothy-but-witty, zeitgeisty ‘When-Harry-Met-Sally’ equivalent? Or is it flirting with a more traditional romance format? Or is it ultimately a more serious feminist analysis? This last question raises another problem I had with this, the feminist dimension seemed so heavy-handed at times, almost retro, like a throwback to the didactic, women-focused fictions produced by writers like Marilyn French. But a lot of people seemed to enjoy this and rated it highly, so maybe it’s just another of those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ things. And even though I didn't engage with this, I'd still be interested to see what the author comes up with next.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two women meet in an elevator and become friends - then lovers - then friends - then lovers - etc. It's a great capture of two people who are drawn to one another despite the external pressures (Leena comes from a traditional Indian family that expects her to marry a man and have babies once she gets her education "over with;" Eleanor comes from a family that is fairly accepting of her.) They are navigating the period from college into young adulthood.

This book doesn't come out in October so any of the above could change; I had a copy from the publisher and it fit the bill for the mood I was in so I read it a bit early.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I could write a lot about the writing style* - an extensive overuse of boring speech words like 'replied' 'answered' and 'asked' is enough to bore me. But, instead of the aspects that put me off the novel that would normally have me discard it, I'm giving this book this rating because of the aspects that kept me engrossed in finishing to see where it would go: namely, a) the less-than-great discussion of bisexuality and b) the less-than-great much briefer discussion of trans people.

A constant hiccup for me was the very, very reductive conversations surrounding the fluidity of queerness and the concept of bisexuality, especially for a book that leans heavily on a character's background in queer literature college courses. "Sexuality is fluid!" cries Leena, after drunkenly kissing a woman she just met while in a monogamous relationship with a man. "What are you doing with a man?" demands Eleanor, somehow forgetting there's more than just lesbians on the LGBTQ spectrum. "Sexuality is so personal," theorizes Eleanor's mom, after assuming Leena's boyfriend must be trans since she thought Leena was only attracted to women.

Constant, constant jabs at Leena for being "the straight girl" because of her current partner. And yet, the only time "are you bisexual?" is asked of Leena, by her male fiance, blindsided by her past history with women, Leena wants to say "No, I am not anything notable.... there's nothing to see here." Listen, I am all for people exploring the labels that fit them, but there's a whole letter - two, even - in LGBTQ that describe attraction to multiple genders.

And then there's the three (3!) references to the existence of trans people, and all of them make me cringe.

1) the inclusion of trans men in a specifically women-centered space: not just a queer space, but an entire goddamn paragraph about the different kinds of women, and trans men just sprinkled in at the end

"Women everywhere. In knit caps over shorn hair, in ill-fitting button-downs, with long hair like a beauty queen, with red lipstick. So many black, plastic-framed glasses. White women and Brown women and black women. Lanky, tall women and women with natural hair and older butch women and trans men."

2) the above comment of sexuality being personal: Eleanor's mom assumes Leena's new boyfriend must be transgender, since she thinks Leena is a lesbian

3) side characters Sam & Cath: Sam identifies as a lesbian in college but later is shown to have transitioned, and in the third section of the book, the couple is still happily together, now married with a kid.

"I've never been happier in my life," Sam said, with such conviction that Leena felt winded.

But Cath isn't that excited anymore -

"Being single," Cath said wistfully.

And shortly after,

" it's different for us. We're gay - well, I'm still gay -which means our marriage is different... more open. Less boundaries."

and then proceeds to flirt with Leena while her husband is across the room?

Three instances of including trans people, and none of them great. An entire novel about questioning personal sexuality, and only mentioning bisexuality in passing or as a joke. Bisexuality and trans people only serving as plot devices to demonstrate how attractive Leena is to other women.

At its core, this is a love-and-loss story between two queer women of color, and at face value that's rare and wonderful, but it doesn't come without its hiccups.





*(I thought it was ironic when Eleanor's professor criticized her for being "long winded" and "using seven words when two would suffice" in a paper and thought maybe that was a tongue-in-cheek nod to the younger version of Eleanor before she grew up.... but then it was like that the rest of the book too, so.)

[Bianca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-3.5

A World Between centres around two American women. Eleanor is half Japanese, half Jewish. Leena's parents are Indian. The two meet at university and have a short but intense fling. While Eleanor is out and proud, Leena hasn't come out to her very traditional parents, she's willing to follow the beaten path to please her family.

A few years later, they meet again. Leena is dating a lovely Indian man, they're about to get engaged.
Eleanor is in a relationship and is working for a charity. Will their spark rekindle?

First of all, I was glad to finally read a novel centred on queer women, I don't recall reading one before, the feminist in me was annoyed by that omission, especially given how many books featuring gay men I read.

The novel was easy to read, even though it was overwritten and too long.
Back in the day, I used to think, especially when men would piss me off, that it would be so much easier to be with a woman and that it was such a shame that I was attracted to men. It turns out, all relationships are complicated because people are complex. Who'd have thought, right? ;-)

Discovering that same-sex relationships deal with the same headaches as most hetero couples was both comforting and disappointing.

Anyway, as much as a middle-aged hetero white woman can assess, this was a good debut novel.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book broke me!! 🥺💘😭 A fresh, decade-spanning Asian millennial story of queer life and love, and also a classic tale of will they/won’t they.

Eleanor and Leena fall for each other as college students in 2004, and from there, we find them colliding again and again over the next thirteen years. These characters are complicated and strong-willed. When they meet, Eleanor is bold and judgmental. Leena is quiet and driven, but holds so many secrets to protect her family.

There were many things I deeply loved about this story: Eleanor and Leena’s drive to do good in the world. Their love for their grandmothers. Their ties to the rituals and traditions of their religions and cultures (Eleanor is Japanese-Jewish, and Leena is Indian-Hindu). The discussions of intergenerational trauma. The queer sex scenes (see Hashimoto’s article in Catapult magazine for a great deep dive).

The book depicted the characters in flux: each messy and struggling in their own ways. They sometimes said things that I disagreed with: Eleanor’s dismissive comments about bisexuality and about “real Asians,” Leena’s savior complex, confused comments about gentrification, and a beloved but racist t-shirt. Sometimes, these comments were followed up with acknowledgment that a character had crossed a line, but not always. The reader is intentionally left to sit with Eleanor and Leena’s assumptions & misguided convictions as they grow older and stumble to find their way.

This is a story full of loose ends.
Of missed connections, broken promises, the push and pull of desire versus expectations.
Of friendship, love, heartbreak, and wanting to do what’s right but not knowing how to get there.

It was expansive and comforting and painful.

I think it will fit in well alongside books like Normal People, A Place For Us, and Cantoras.💖

[Bill Muganda · Rating 4 out of 5]

They'd been here before. It started with giving away a slice of themselves to the other, then ended with howling dissolution.

I really enjoyed getting to know these two characters and how the author played with perspective, so intimately, their identities stretched out, jumping out of the page. Touching on family expectations since both characters (Eleanor & Leena) come from Asian backgrounds entrapping their futures, exploring the nuances of their sexuality whilst navigating rough waters of early adulthood. The choice to give in to the inevitable destiny of career, marriage, etc, or burn it all in the name of love. I shan't forget them anytime soon.

I highly recommend you pick this up.

[✩☽ · Rating 1 out of 5]

this isn't really a romance novel so much as it is a novel about the occasional intersection of the lives of two very different people. and it has it's own merits in that regard - but i was so repeatedly disconcerted by the politics of the book that the underlying unease really took away from any enjoyment i might have salvaged out of it. and the politics are hard to ignore because the book opens with a self declared radical protagonist, who is anything but.

enter emily: she's not very different from your typical self-important and moralistic YA protagonists, except she remains that way even at age 30 when that behavior is considerably less cute (if it ever was). but more to the point: the book presents her as someone with strong morals, itching to make a difference. except for the entire book, we have to hear how hard life is for emily because helping people is not as glamorous as she'd hoped, involves filling spreadsheets and no one is treating her like she's the next coming of christ. she has the savior complex of the well meaning but clueless liberal completely oblivious to her own (relative) privilege. she walks into a predominantly black and latino neighbourhood and is then astonished that the people there aren't falling to their knees to thank her for saving them. this is a significant portion of her life crisis in the second half of the book and no one ever knocks sense into her head, because it's treated as a perfectly legitimate problem. it's baffling.

if we were to ignore those issues for a moment ... then the plot has some value as a deconstruction of your typical insta-love romances. emily and leena meet and five seconds later, emily is planning their wedding. however, because emily craves the fantasy of a perfect romance rather than caring about her partner as a person, this relationship immediately goes south, because every time leena acts in a way that disrupts the fantasy, emily immediately feels threatened and feels insecure. there's a lot of grand declarations but they're all meaningless in the face of emily's immaturity.

leena's problems are cultural and easier to sympathize with, but i cannot for the life of me see what the hell leena sees in emily. they're so incompatible this book is like watching a slow motion train wreck. i guess the sex is really good? we're told they find each other easy to talk to but every time they have a serious conversation about their relationship or their future together, they break up. at least the book didn't romanticize projecting your fantasies on other people and ended with the characters going to therapy and learning to deal with their issues first.

but nothing about how it happens is particularly interesting to read, even if it wasn't for the politics.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 — What I liked: very real, very honest story of two women as they weave in and out of each other’s lives over 13 years. I enjoyed the cultural references as the MCs are of Japanese/Jewish & Indian/Hindu backgrounds. There were definitely some situations and emotions that I related to and cringed at times because of that melodramatic familiarity that often comes with immaturity. But at the same time was comforted bc hello! I’m clearly not alone as evidenced by an author who has written about it :)

What I didn’t like: the pacing. The amount of detail in this book didn’t work for me. That’s not to say I dislike detail-oriented stories...for science fiction/fantasy books, details are super important in portraying a universe unfamiliar. But I would compare the details described in this akin to asking someone how their day went, and they proceed to chronicle what time they woke up, how they woke up, what clothes they wore upon waking up, and what their first, second, and third thoughts were. Totally a subjective preference but for me it just lulled the story.

What I would have appreciated knowing beforehand: I’m ok with books not ending in a resolute way. Happy endings are contingent on when you choose to end a story and this could have had that kind of ending. Instead, it was left open-ended, very much emulating real life. I dig that...But I’ll admit something about this left me feeling unsettled.

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book ripped my heart out and reminded me of why i love reading and writing. the text is smartly structured around a relationship, all while centering the communities that structure that relationship, the family histories, and how we heal and grow from them. eleanor and leena, two queer AAPI women, meet first as college students, becoming girlfriends with the ardor of early love and steeped in learning about the world and how to be queer in it (audre lorde, bell hooks, adrienne rich, plus dyke drama at the l word screening and vagina monologues show). over 11 years, they find one another again in turns, while contending with possibility and who they will become.

desire undoes us. growth meets us achingly — both in recognizing what happened, our decisions, and the ways we sowed hurt, and for what didn't happen, and the paths no longer available to us. i wept over the last 100 pages of this novel, for a scene of a yom kippur service at the gay temple, for eleanor reading "communion" by bell hooks over joni mitchell and red wine, eleanor alienated at her nonprofit desk job while dreaming of collective liberation. in case it's not obvious, i am utterly an eleanor. i went so far as to pause my reading halfway through to watch "when harry met sally", whose structure and meandering new york city conversations it mirrors.

2022 is the year of me being a simp for my girlfriend and the novel. i'm terrified of the thrall we can hold over one another even as i find myself more devoted to it than ever. this novel grapples with how we love and desire another in ways that fully embrace its fearful and ferocious power.

[Libby C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy eff. an enthusiastic five stars.

This book starts out so ordinary that it's remarkable -- okay, these are just two college students, like any other. And then I just got hella swept up in the lives of Eleanor and Leena where by the end i was shouting at the book, heart pounding.

This was sally rooney, but gay as hell and over the course of a decade-plus. i definitely had my moments where i was like ugh why do these people even talk to each other anymore - go find other people, there's 7 billion others. but then i quieted that hater voice in my head and obviously these people are incredibly important to each other in a very relatable way.

the premise: all female relationships are on a spectrum from "we kinda friends" to "we obsessed and in love." this book mines that to talk about two queer MCs' female friendship, desire, pasts, guilt, regret, heartbreak and i just loved it.

[sonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

two queer woman of color? having a romance? and incredible character development? and they keep colliding through the years? this book had it all

this was complex and funny and hot (like very hot, so if you’re not into explicit sex scenes, i would skip this one) and had interesting discussions about sexuality, feminism, adulthood, jobs, your place in the world and many more. the chemistry between main characters was incredible. they were complexed and flawed and i loved them.

i would highly, highly recommend this book!

[Sonya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be still my heart! I didn’t want this book to end!! I could have easily read another few hundred pages - about Leena and Eleanor, two women who meet in college and fall into a whirlwind romance in 2004. We follow them as they run into each other in San Francisco in 2010, and again (of course!) in 2017.

Eleanor and Leena felt so real to me, in all their complexities and contradictions. We first meet them in 2004 - Eleanor, who is half-Japanese and half-white, is majoring in women’s studies and deeply driven by a desire to do good in the world. Leena, who is Indian, is pre-med and set on becoming a doctor. Eleanor is passionate, often defining herself through her relationships with others; Leena is cautious about straying from the path she believes she’s supposed to have, afraid to come out to her family.

I was so captivated by the magnetism between Eleanor and Leena, the way they couldn’t stay out of each other’s lives and kept running into each other years later. Emily Hashimoto managed to write this intoxicating magnetism, while also honoring the oftentimes difficult and messy nuance of relationships - relationships of all kinds. I loved that this book didn’t really have a central plot line, that one obstacle the characters have to overcome, or that one identity they have to come to embrace. Instead, it was just such a joy to follow these women as they exist and thrive and stumble, as they grapple with family, friendship, romance, career, who they want to be, as they grow both separately and together and learn what staying true to themselves even means. Hashimoto gives them each the space to grow, in their own time.

Other small details I loved: the way this book was grounded in things happening in the world in 2004, 2010, and 2017; the way characters were reading and learning from bell hooks IN THE BOOK; and that we get characters who are really thinking deeply about the kind of impact they want to have in society.

There’s no delight quite like coming across such a beautiful book, that also happens to be a debut and published by an indie press.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book drove me up the wall on a regular basis but I still read the whole thing quite quickly. After their first relationship in college, nothing about how these two women related to each other made sense to me. On paper there is so much to love about it but in practice I had trouble believing that their relationship made all these shifts and that they kept coming back together the ways they did.

There is an awful lot of telling and not showing here, paragraphs where the characters really consider things and their thoughts are all laid out. It is not that this is a problem, really, of course characters in novels should have thoughts. But the consideration of it felt more like what they would write in a journal or tell a therapist than something that is part of a narrative. It kept pulling me out of the story. I think some people will really really love this, but it didn't work for me.

The characters start quite young, around 20, and they spend the entire book doing the kind of really stupid stuff you do in your 20's. So it is accurate! But they also make you want to punch something because they are being so ridiculous. I struggled.

It is also, it must be said, a book where after a woman who has slept with women has a relationship with a man that all the other women tell her, "But you're a lesbian!" instead of taking five seconds to consider that maybe she is bisexual. So. (It is considered, oh so briefly, for about a sentence about 100 pages into this whole mess.)

[sandia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was actually pretty excited to read this, but sadly I wanted to like it so much more than I actually did. I think that honestly this book just needed to have been edited more, and that really detracted from what could have at the very least been an enjoyable read. Far too often I was just annoyed by the overly narrative and descriptive writing, or moments when the author would do something like describe the lyrics of a specific song—e.g “The next song was a jumpy pop tune, a guitar twanging lightly from underneath, someone telling someone else to shut up and dance with them.” This is absolutely not necessary. I am confident this book could have been 50-75 pages shorter if the writing had just been tightened up, and it would have made for a better read.

Story wise, I am always here for a queer romance, and so there were, yes, aspects of this book that I enjoyed. But it was much more a romance novel than I expected it to be (understand that I have nothing against romance novels, but it’s not exactly what I was expecting given the description) and it’s so self consciously PC in a way that made me feel like I was back in college and not in the best way. So many topics are explored in this book and I think that oftentimes the story gets lost because of that.

There’s always value in reading queer work and I’m not going to dissuade anyone from reading this, I just was left more than a bit disappointed by this one.

[Reem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing a review for this one because I don’t want my 3 star review (more like 3.5, but alas) to deter anyone from reading the novel who is intrigued by the synopsis. Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of the writing style and found both of the main characters to be a little immature and given that the novel spans 13 years, I expected a bit more character development (yes, I know there is no expiration date on immaturity. Growth is not linear!!). This being said, it was still a good love story - one that I know many will be able appreciate and enjoy more than I did.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really lovely and I was really pleased with how it ended. A great look at how a person can be a meaningful presence in your life even when you are moving in and out of eachothers lives through time. For what felt like a very queer book it did at times feel like a really rigid stance on sexuality was being taken but other than that I thought this was a really solid queer coming of age story.

[Linnae Chau · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars— super sweet n real romance novel centering 2 queer Asian-Am women as they come in and out of each other’s lives & explore their many identities and adulthood. i feel like there weren’t many huge driving events in the book, but that also made me appreciate a story where these characters can just BE. they got to be human, both with their own strengths and flaws. made me feel seen! <3

[Lyla · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I genuinely hate this book. The writing itself is so long and winded and I rarely say a book should be shorter but this is a book that would have gained a lot from being shorter and not focusing on every single little detail there was. The characterization is poor, its messy for the sake of being a messy relationship story, I don't feel the growth at all! So. Lets go over the book top to bottom in my issues, because I have a lot of them. Not entirely in any order

The subtle biphobia, the pushing to out yourself or have just one concrete label that you are and you stick to for your whole life. Eleanor constant pushing and pushing and pushing tor Leema to put herself into a box feels so fundamentally against the queer experience and exploring yourself. Maybe shes gay! Maybe shes bi! She seemed to like you why does it matter! Why does she have to out herself to her family or walk around holding hands. Why does she have to be a super loud gay as I know people who aren't. A part that really stuck with me was when Leema was engaged (To a man, oh no I say sarcastically) they were talking about going to pride. Now Leema said that it wasn't her thing and that's fine. You don't have to be a loud gay, you can be quiet and private with those things shes a private person we are shown that throughout. Eleanors response of "Why not because your partner doesnt have a vagina?" fucking almost made me throw the book at the wall. Are you fucking insane? Do you hear yourself? What a fucking line to say. I can't believe that you thought this would endear me to the character at all. I will get to all my problems with Eleanor later.

But for now lets talk about trans rep and how BAD it is and how weird it is with how excluded it is? In a story about queer people? And oh lets not forget FEMINISM? You can shout and scream about vaginas and womans rights all day in the book but suddenly there's the topic of trans woman and there is not a single, not ONE mention of a trans woman and her rights in regard to your loud ass feminism. It comes off REALLY bad. The other mentions of trans people we have are one line at a bar, Eleanors mom assuming her new boyfriend MUST be trans because she was a lesbian (gross? What the fuck is wrong with you), and then Sam who I didn't even know or remember when the book came back up with him and was like. Fine. But that's late in the book and doesn't save any of it at ALL. Why are there crickets when it comes to a trans woman's rights in your feminism? Or was the fact that it suddenly dropped off way more later on in the book as trans rights became more popular in the 2017 era where the last section of the book takes place like a subtle hint at something you didn't want to talk about. Why are there crickets. It's gross.

These are two fundamentally incomparable people. Just straight up. What do they have in common I can glean from 400 pages of novel? Well, they both want to make a SUPER BIT CHANGE IN THE WORLD (we'll get to THAT), they're queer poc, they have hot passionate sex, they drink. That's it. That is where the similarities start and end and the book doesn't even try to show them really getting into something they're both passionate about because NEITHER OF THESE CHARACTERS ARE WELL DEVELOPED. I will scream it over and over for people who think so but neither of these women are anything but the sum of what I just said! Eleanor gets some development saying she likes yoga and books at the end of the book but where was that before? Sure they watch all lesbian media together but was Leena ever actually super into it or just dealing with it for Eleanors sake? Sure they go out to the park and kind of talk about religion a little bit but they're different cultures and so that's not a bonding point that they really play up either. What brought these two together beyond Eleanor SCREAMING how they are MEANT 2 BE!!! So hot together and so on and so forth. God.

Eleanor I want to take in the back and put her down like a dog. Sure, whatever, being a shitty jealous 20 year old in college who's for the first time exploring her queerness away from home being a lesbian and wanting to be loud fine. You know what fine. With your woman's studies and all vagina rights talk. Fine. Whatever. But then she doesn't get BETTER at all! The best thing she does is go to therapy at the end of the book which surprise I would have love to seen rather than just being told shes doing it and get real development but that's too hard for this book. All the development has to happen in between the time skips. Constant pushing and being fucking weird and pushing to go and out yourself and the whole like we are meant to be and just everything about her fucking irritates me. She wants to go out and SAVE THE WORLD and do BIG CHANGES but when she isn't be offered to go hand feed queer kids from shitty homes and instead has to do the FUN FACT! IMPORTANT ADMINISTRATIVE WORK THOSE ORGANIZATIONS NEED shes so pissy and boo hoo about it? Why isn't everyone coming to me like I'm the second coming of God boo hoo? Why can't I do something big and important and cool and have my names in the papers and that's what it felt like the entire time and I hated every single second of it. Maybe it's because I'm not like that with big world shattering aspirations to go and CHANGE THE FABRIC OF HUMANITY but it was in its all fucking annoying at best and at worse felt like savior complex.

THE CHEATING. HOLY SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I get that romance stories try to do this sometimes with true love and whatever else but can we talk about how it literally ruined Leemas life? Literally. Sure she didn't marry someone she maybe didn't love and sure maybe coming out to her family was the right thing in the end of it all but also some people love their family and aren't comfortable with it and you gave her hope of being together after again, CHEATING ON HER FIANCE WITH YOU and then it just didn't happen lol sorry. If that were me I would fly and strangle Eleanor myself. Does Eleanor feel bad about cheating? No, arguably the opposite when after she kisses Leema she looks at Leemas fiance and says "She felt bad for him. She wished she could shove him down a hill" Are you kidding me? You're the one in the wrong here.

Finally let's talk about the end of the book, because here's the thing. They don't end up together. But they're still talking about true love and romance and meant to be like they're 20 when they're what, in their 30s? Eleanor was said she was 33? And she seems to at least be kind of moving in the right direction but then still talks about matching with Leema like neither of you moved on at all? So actually what development did the relationship get other than hurting each other over and over and if I was in that spot I'd more likely want to rip her head off than have sex with her AGAIN.

I'm a lesbian, I'm also someone who struggled with that label for a long time, had multiple DIFFERENT labels even. I also have given up on gender by this point. I'm white too, so maybe there's some subtlety I missed out on. I can admit all of these things. A lot of the stuff I bring up is stuff that can hit home for me, personally, as a queer person who's struggled with this shit. I think lesbian romances can be messy, I argue they should be. Queer books should be allowed to be messy. I like them even, of funny little fucked up lesbian books where characters might get some development or just something. Anything to engage me more than this book did and didn't make me so angry by trying to be WOKE and about feminism and about what marriage means to queer people and outing yourself despite the real super big repercussions of what can happen yeah. Go out and just fucking out yourself and give up your life goals for a woman (which happens multiple times in the book) and cheat to go have hot lesbian sex and yeah, it'll be great.

[BookChampions · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is THE summer for *A World Between*! Released in fall of 2020, Emily Hashimoto's debut is definitely one of the best books I've read all year.

I fell hard for this story of Eleanor and Leena, two women of color in their early 20s who meet in an elevator on their way to a queer theory lecture, and are forever linked. I am seeing Casey McQuinton's *One Last Stop* on many feeds this month, and I would encourage those who enjoyed that or who enjoy smart queer romances to seek this book out.

I love Hashimoto's narrative plotting. While third person throughout, the novel is broken up into four long sections, two focused on Leena's POV and two on Eleanor's. The book is heavy with the messy emotions, desperate and self-conscious and hyper-aware, of these two queer women. *A World Between* is distinctly feminist, too, with not only references to Audre Lorde and bell hooks and Adrienne Rich, but also in its honesty about the lives of queer women's friendships and romances and the complications when those two things cross one another.

Maybe I got this feeling because Jane Austen is mentioned as the origin of Eleanor's name, but *A World Between* has a VERY Jane Austen quality to it---if Austen wrote queer love stories. Leena and Eleanor are as memorable as Austen's best characters.

Unabashedly clever, gloriously diverse, and painfully real in its depiction of not only the nature of love but the unique tangles of realizing your queerness in the world and within your family of origin, *A World Between* is definitely a winner! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars!

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wowowow. Feels like a gut punch straight from 2004 in this achingly beautiful story about identity, love, lust, interconnectedness, and grief. Captivating writing and plot. Still processing all the nuances of the relationships and how we define and explore our sexuality.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ugh, so cute and necessary!! I need to discuss the ending with people!!

[whatsjennareading · Rating 5 out of 5]

After seeing @lupita.reads and @readmollyread post about this book recently, I knew it was one I wanted to read immediately. A World Between is the f/f story I’ve been looking for. I saw myself and past iterations of my relationship in this book and its characters in a way I never have before. Told in 4 parts, over 13 years, in the alternating voices of Leena and Eleanor, the beginning of the story takes place on a college campus in 2004. I met my wife on a college campus in 2003, so this part of the story especially was so incredibly nostalgic. I felt like I was once again living on campus, rushing to a poorly chosen 8am class on little to no sleep and wondering just how badly my grade would be impacted if I skipped again. It reminded me of the friendships formed in your dorm that are not quite like any others you’ll find in your life, campus food, cramming for finals, coming out and being out for the first time, the uncertainty and all consuming obsession of a new relationship, the struggles of sharing a twin bed, and so many L word references.

A World Between follows Eleanor and Leena as they find each other, split up, and find each other and themselves again over the course of life changes, family expectations, new jobs, marriage, and loss. It’s messy and complicated and full of big ugly feelings and misunderstandings that are often the product of trying to be in a relationship when you aren’t completely out. Being together at the wrong time and the joy of finding each other again when it’s right. It’s full of desire and yearning and friendship and unconditional love. I just loved it so so much and I’m so glad I read it. I wish I had a copy I could hug, but until it’s out next week, my iPad will have to do. To my queer friends, I hope you read and love this too. Thank you @emilyhash for writing this book and thank you @feministpress for the advanced review copy. A World Between is out on 9/15 and I’ve included the synopsis in the comments.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A queer interracial multi decade love story that got me from page one.

[Sara Kaner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one took me a really long time to get into - mostly due to my life circumstances last week and not having adequate time to dedicate to reading. HOWEVER, once I got into it, I really enjoyed reading this love story unfold in a surprising and beautiful way. The characters both developed unexpectedly, and the ending wasn’t what I wanted but what I think was needed for the story. I’d recommend this to any folks looking for a quality queer romance read with great character development 💜

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

*loved* this book.

[Linda Stack-Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world is sadly devoid of wlw fiction for and about the complications of being adults in love. This book, which sometimes made me tear up and sometimes made me squawk-laugh, is a welcome installment in that regard. That being said, the pacing felt exceptionally odd to me and I need someone to talk to about the ending ASAP. If you like a slow burn, the Vagina Monologues, and Marina Abramovic it might gel more with you than it did with me.