The Space Between

by Brenna Yovanoff

Overview

A transcendent novel about a demon girl's search for love, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Replacement

Everything burns in Pandemonium, a city in Hell made of chrome and steel, where there is no future and life is an expanse of frozen time. That's where Daphne--the daughter of Lilith and Lucifer--waits, wondering what lies in store for her. Will she become a soulless demon like her sisters? Or follow in the footsteps of her brother Obie, whose life is devoted to saving lost souls on Earth? But when Obie saves a troubled boy named Truman from the brink of death and then goes missing, Daphne is catapulted on a mission to Earth, with Truman as her guide. As Daphne and Truman search for Obie, they discover what it means to love and be human in a world where human is the hardest thing to be.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101558911
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	11/14/2011
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	388 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Brenna Yovanoff is one third of the Merry Sisters of Fate along with Maggie Stiefvater and Tessa Gratton, whose flash fiction can be found at www.merryfates.com. She lives in Denver, Colorado. The Replacement is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

This powerful and decidedly uncomfortable dark fantasy concerns Daphne, a serious and introspective young woman who just happens to live in Hell, being the youngest daughter of Lucifer and Lilith. Pandemonium isn’t a bad place to live—“the city shines silver, as highly polished as a wish. The streets sprawl out in complicated spirals, winding between glossy buildings”—but Daphne feels like something is missing. She could go to Earth and seduce young men like her older half-sisters (the hunt made more delicious by the danger represented by Azrael, the sadistic angel of death, and his monstrous companion, Dark Dreadful), but she feels like such sexual goings-on are beneath her. Then, her brother Obie, Hell’s most notorious do-gooder, saves Truman Flynn, a teenage suicide, from death. Witnessing the boy’s brief, painful materialization in Hell, Daphne is taken with him; when Obie disappears on Earth, she enlists Truman to help find him. Yovanoff (The Replacement) once again develops complex, believable characters as well as a supernatural milieu that feels both original and lived in. This confident tale contains moments of beauty, terror, and significant wisdom. Ages 14–up. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up—Daphne's home life is Hell. Literally. The daughter of Lilith and Lucifer, the sensitive teen feels out of place. When her adored older brother, Obie, abandons Hell to be with a girl he met on Earth, Daphne does what she has never done before. In order to find him and warn him of imminent danger, she leaves Hell, too. Once on Earth, Daphne seeks help from Truman, a self-destructive teenage boy whose incessant nightmares spur him to dangerous excesses in order to stay awake. As they work together to find Obie, besting a demon or two along the way, Daphne learns to appreciate and cultivate her humanity, the very thing that alienates her from her family. This bildungsroman features a sympathetic, believable protagonist who learns, changes, and grows. Daphne shrinks from the future planned for her, that of being like her ravenous older sisters, the Lilim, who live off the pain of weak men. Yovanoff's writing distinguishes itself with its inlay of eloquent and imaginative passages about life in Pandemonium (the sleek, metallic capital city of Hell), Daphne's sometimes-comic acclimations to life on Earth, Truman's tragic story arc, and the tender romance that develops between them.—Jennifer Prince, Buncombe County Public Library, NC

School Library Journal

A dark love story between a girl from Hell and a boy from Earth, both with heavenly heritage. Daphne is royalty in Hell's city Pandemonium because she's the daughter of Lilith--Adam's first wife--and the fallen angel Lucifer. She's disconnected from her succubae sisters fathered by lesser demons and is closest to her eldest brother, Adam's son Obie. Instead of collecting souls for Hell, Obie's job is to save the Lost Ones, the half-human children of angels. But when Obie leaves Pandemonium for good only to go missing, Daphne's single lead is one of his last cases--Truman, a self-destructive, alcoholic teenager. The narration switches between Daphne's first person and Truman's close third, providing characterization through each other's eyes while affirming the yin-yang quality of the pair: a girl who wants to feel and a boy who feels too much. The race to stay ahead of the angelic demon hunter Azrael and his beast, Dark Dreadful, along with solving the mystery behind Obie's disappearance, balance out the introspective elements of the story. Although the lush descriptions occasionally edge into gothic purple prose, they create beauty in both gritty locations and violent gore alike. The pace accelerates in the last act as the characterizations converge with the plot. A dreamy, atmospheric take on Judeo-Christian mythology that prioritizes character. (Paranormal romance. 13 & up)

Kirkus Reviews