White Space by Ilsa J. Bick Review

White Space (Dark Passages #1), by Ilsa J. Bick
Published On: February 11, 2014, by Egmont USA
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Paranormal, Fantasy, Contemporary
Pages: 560
Format: Hardcover
Source: Borrowed
Rating: 

Seventeen-year-old Emma Lindsay has problems: a head full of metal, no parents, a crazy artist for a guardian whom a stroke has turned into a vegetable, and all those times when she blinks away, dropping into other lives so ghostly and surreal it's as if the story of her life bleeds into theirs. But one thing Emma has never doubted is that she's real.
Then she writes "White Space," a story about these kids stranded in a spooky house during a blizzard.
Unfortunately, "White Space" turns out to be a dead ringer for part of an unfinished novel by a long-dead writer. The manuscript, which she's never seen, is a loopy Matrix meets Inkheart story in which characters fall out of different books and jump off the page. Thing is, when Emma blinks, she might be doing the same and, before long, she's dropped into the very story she thought she'd written. Trapped in a weird, snow-choked valley, Emma meets other kids with dark secrets and strange abilities: Eric, Casey, Bode, Rima, and a very special little girl, Lizzie. What they discover is that they--and Emma--may be nothing more than characters written into being from an alternative universe for a very specific purpose.
Now what they must uncover is why they've been brought to this place--a world between the lines where parallel realities are created and destroyed and nightmares are written--before someone pens their end.

    Ilsa J. Bick is one of the authors that is so raved about that I knew that I am going to have to begin reading a book of hers sooner or later. When I spotted this in the bookstore a few weeks after it was released, I knew that I had to read it. Sadly, I DNFed it at 107 pages and I don't regret it at all.

"Something has bled into this world, all right. Something is storming after them. Something is running them down. Not an aurora. Not clouds. What is coming for them is the fog."

     So for once, I'm not the black sheep in this situation. Most of the times, I actually am and it frustrates me because I can basically agree with my own opinion and that's about it. For this book, I've read so many negative and DNF reviews before reading, and I kind of expected it even though I still wanted to give it a try. So I did—and it was okay for like two chapters, and then I just let go of happiness.

       You see, the thing is I feel confused and mentally abused. I didn't even really understand the plot and the formation of POVs or anything of that sort. All I did catch to understand was that there's a Mirror and something happened that got Lizzie and Emma's dad nuts and no one believes him so the family moves to a remote place far away from London. That's just about it. When the author introduced a new character, the event was never memorable and I didn't seem to even know who was who or who was telling the story at the time since it was confusing. And whenever I'm reading a POV in a book, I always feel like I need a sense of direction of who's reading. This was a total The 5th Wave situation again. 

       Why waste my time being confused by reading an almost 600-paged book? That's horror of readers. Lately I've been finding that I've been DNF-ing a lot of books, and that kind of frightens me for the future of YA.

          "People are always dying for him to hurry up and write the next book already. They love that feeling of being lost somewhere and somewhen else. Sometimes Lizzie doesn't want to pull herself out of a book-world at all, just like kids who pretend to be superheroes and run around in costumes."

         Probably the only thing that was positive in this book was the actual writing. No, I don't mean the plot or characters, but the actual words. We can all tell that Bick is very talented at it, but doesn't do a really good job at actually capturing the reader's attention greatly.

          You see, if the book wasn't as confusing or improbable, then maybe I would've enjoyed the plot and actual story. But since that was out of the story, why just keep on going to read some random mumbo-jumbo that doesn't mean anything to you? Aren't words supposed to mean something and possibly inspire you? So, the plot was out of the question. Don't even ask about my experience, because I'm as frustrated as a scared cat.

               I probably had to like Lizzie better than Emma, but I think Emma was telling the story more often? I'm actually not even sure of what was happening more than half of the time, haha. If you're like me and get easily confused with POVs then I'd suggest to run away as fast as you can. This book wasn't even worth a dollar. I wouldn't even take it if someone gave it to me for free, honestly.

       As most books that I DNF, this had a total potential to become something great. In ways, this definitely reminded me of Afterworlds, by Scott Westerfield with the whole book aspect. Don't you just love it when authors write about characters who actually write books themselves? Of course I do, but this was a blur. I can't seem to barely get anything out of it. Not recommended—stay away and trust the reviews.