I really did like a lot about this book. The lighthouse vibes were amazing, and I really enjoyed the setting. I was entertained, as someone who hasn't been to the Pacific Northwest, by the fact that this did not feel like a Pacific Northwest story at all. Abbie is from New England; her new author photo is a New England lighthouse I've been to hundreds of times. That was what I pictured for this entire book. It may not have been correct, but it did make me ridiculously happy.

Orca, also, was a fantastic lead. This was a very Rapunzel-esque story, and I'm always a fan of the ingenue-type female lead who's a fish out of water. I loved how much she loved her father and her dog. I also, personally, really liked the ending of this book--it tied things up very neatly, but I thought it was earned and happy. No one in this book is a terrible person or a distinct villain, and that's okay. It was exactly what I wanted from a sweet contemporary.

I wasn't necessarily a fan of the love triangle. While I didn't really notice the age gap--it was not super prominent, if I'm being honest, and normally I'm super sensitive to that--I didn't like the instalove. I do entirely understand where it came from, and Abbie did a great job with motivations, but I didn't love how fast it all progressed. I think a slightly slower burn would've done the job better. But that's okay!

Adam was great and I loved him. He was that kind, rugged pilot type with the heart of gold. I do wish we'd gotten a little more of an internal struggle from him (and Jack) that didn't JUST revolve around Orca, but I did love that his fatal flaw was thinking too well of people. It was a great touch that I don't see often enough. Also Jack was a wonderful take on the younger brother character. I loved his arc.

I didn't especially mind the kissing or the swearing that a lot of people have complained about. Basically: this is a secular novel. That's okay. If you want a clean book, this one is not for you. I didn't find it especially gratuitous or bad on either count, but I'm also not especially sensitive to this stuff. Keep that in mind.

Romance is definitely not my genre, but I did enjoy this book and I look forward to more from Abbie!

This review of Abbie Emmons’ book The Otherworld was provided based on an advanced reader copy of the book provided by NetGalley.

Have you ever felt like you were looking at life through the other end of the telescope? Have you ever felt that somewhere off in the distance there was a life you were meant to live? You could almost see it, almost touch it, and if you focused your imagination acutely enough, you could feel it. Orca Monroe, of Abbie Emmons’ new book, The Otherworld, lives on the other end of the telescope; and just off in the distance, is the rest of the world.

With her formative years spent developing her inner world, Orca has had the unique opportunity to experience life nearly solely from her own perspective, without the influence of peers, social schematics, community structures, hierarchies, modern technology, and conveniences. The story begins with a glimpse into the years Orca has spent planning and waiting for her chance to see and experience the world she has dreamed of; a world that for all intents and purposes, she is already living in. But she never imagined THAT world would come to her.

The power of the mind is strong but when an imagined life has been fine tuned to the extent that it is almost being lived simultaneously with reality, it can be a force that generates action like the spokes of a propeller.

The spokes of the propeller start to speed up causing one world to begin the motion of crashing into another as young and headstrong, Jack Stevenson, clings fiercely to something very important to him that he can’t stand to lose. While everyone around him lets go, believing all is lost, Jack determines not to let go; and his act of will aligns with Orca’s so that their two paths converge bringing what Jack is most afraid of losing along for the ride.

I am purposely leaving out certain plot/character elements in order to not spoil the story for the reader. But as you read, I encourage you to consider just how many catalysts there are, acting on and reacting to each other. I believe that sometimes when two or more people with aligned views and perspectives are in relative proximity to each other, the sheer intensity and force of their likeness of mind causes the paths to meet.

If you enjoyed the film Sliding Doors, you will probably enjoy this book. This is a story that has layers of untold stories beneath the surface and impressions of characters that never quite make it into the story which portends a writer who thinks beyond the main characters, beyond the central plot, and sees stories within stories within stories. I’m looking forward to the next book by Abbie Emmons.

The Otherworld is about choices, consequences, reactions, and actions. It’s about all the routes you decide to skip or avoid on the way to the road you choose to stay on to reach your destination. It’s about all the people you meet along the way, and it’s about that parallel universe "you", off in the distance, who took the risks you didn’t take, who ended the relationships you didn’t end. It’s about what is and what COULD be…if.

I went into this book without expectations and that was honestly the best way to experience it! The Otherworld follows Orca, a teenage girl who grew up isolated living in a remote lighthouse with no experience of the outside world. This book is part romance, part adventure story and for the most part, it really worked for me!

I particularly appreciated the different POVs, they were a great chance to get to know the characters and their unique understanding of the world around them. Unfortunately, I didn't care all that much about the romance but I can totally see other readers fall in love with Jack and Adam, so your mileage will vary!

Overall, I had a fun time with this and really enjoyed the unique setting and the way Abbie Emmons' writing just plants you right in the story.

DNF'd @25%

While the premise was interesting I realize I'm not the target audience for this book.
Orca is very immature and sure, she's 18, and it was charming at first, but it became very frustrating very fast.
The author's prose is the reason I stuck with this book for as long as I do. Her writing can be super vivid and engaging, full of rich imagery.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Set in what I recognize as the PNW, this book explores what it means to love and be loved. What is controlling versus protective? This is a topic that this book discusses. I thought that this book was fine. The writing was good, the editing was good, and the story was fine.
This said, I believe I will definitely pick up anything this author writes in the future as I see Emmons' career set to span a long time.

Being late to this party, I see there’s a huge divide in reviews - it seems people either loved it or hated it!

Was it flawed? YES!
Was it realistic? NO!
Did I enjoy it? I absolutely LOVED IT!

This is fiction, unlike the reference books that Orca reads. It’s a story, so suspend your disbelief and enjoy your flight to the island 🏝️

I loved the descriptions of Orca’s world, on an island with nobody other than her lighthouse keeper Papa in her life. At 18, Orca wants to visit the mainland, the Otherworld, but her father is determined to protect her and keep her for himself, innocent and safe from the harsh realities of the big world.

Orca’s normality is fishing, growing food, stargazing and singing with the sea life.

Orca’s connection with injured pilot, Adam, shows her to have an emotional maturity beyond her years, reflecting the fact that she has only ever shared the adult company of her father and hasn’t experienced a normal childhood. Her comfortable communication style with Adam and his younger brother, Jack, with humorous banter didn’t feel realistic for a teenager who has never met another human being, however, as I said before, I suspended my disbelief and enjoyed Orca’s innocent discovery of the real world, where pizza and grocery stores are new experiences!

More importantly, Orca has the opportunity to discover the woman she has become and decide how she wants to live her life.

4.5⭐️ Thanks to Netgalley and Abbey Emmons, for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This book was perfect, full review on my instagram!



https://www.instagram.com/p/CukoKlrAlgg/I’

Dnf at 40%

Never in my life did I think I'd be dnfing a book by Abbie Emmons but here we are. I honestly couldn't stand how creepy and uncomfortable the book and one of the love interests were making me feel.
I also read some reviews and realised that people who have a problem with the things I do ended up finding way more problems and things that I know I don't want to read about so dnfing is the best choice for me.

So here's what's happening:
The 10 year age gap can honestly be acceptable for me of written well but the fact that the naive and innocent mc just turned 18 makes my stomach churn. Nope. This girl hasn't talked to or met a single person other than her father so for course she's enamoured with Adam and interested in him. That's okay, that's somewhat logical? But Adam is fucking creepy. He's 'falling' for this girl who's not like other girls because she lives alone and talks about philosophy. Seriously, no other girl is ever interested in talking philosophy with you? Then he goes on to say she's 'pure and unpolluted' and I have let out a full body shudder at this point. I cringed so hard while reading this.
And top top it off they fall in love within the first 40% of the book, AFTER 3 DAYS OF KNOWING EACH OTHER. I as it is have an ick of falling in love with the first person you meet/is kind to you but on top of it Orca is literally a child with no knowledge of how these feelings go and Adam is a fucking predator. He literally says that he's nearing 30 and she just turned 18 so it's wrong but continues to pursue her anyway. Ew.
Can't make myself read this.

I'm so disappointed? Literally don't see why Adam couldn't have been written as slightly younger or Orca aged up a bit? But it still wouldn't have affected the not like other girls narrative I guess. This book is sadly a hard pass for me. I'm so disappointed, I was expecting much better from Emmons.

Wow! where to begin? This new book from Abbie is really good. I love the description of the settings because it makes you feel you are really there. You can really fall in love with the main character Orca. Personally I enjoyed the first half of the book, second half seems to be a little more intense, to say the least. But definitely you can feel the emotions of the characters in every scene and even learn a few interesting and practical facts along the way. Another of my favorite things on the book is the conversations between Adam and Orca about science, other interesting topics. Love the ending it keeps you at the edge of your seat!

DNF 60%
Thank you to Abbie Emmons and NetGalley for giving me this book in exchange for an honest review 🫶🫶

With that said I was very bitterly let down by this book. I barley remember direct issues I had with it since I put it down months ago. The book got me into a reading slump but I am a subscriber to the YouTuber and was procrastinating writing this review. The consequences of that is that I don’t remember all that I disliked, but let me try.

Cons
-straight off the bat was eerily similar to tangled down to the dialogue
-the main character was 18 but hadn’t interacted with anyone but her father (she didn’t know what TV or pizza was but very skilled in survival) her love interest is ten years older than her and constantly refers to her as ‘pure’ and other weird things.
-the writing was meh
-the Dad (pretty much Mother Gothel but her actual Dad) was not the villain in this? He kept his daughter away from the real world and would not let her leave, purposely didn’t tell her stuff about technology or even how romance worked. I don’t know he was very controlling, I didn’t like him
-They make the youngest character in the book the kind of villain character when everyone else was literally so problematic at least he was a kid 💀
-I couldn’t keep reading and almost thirty year old man sexualise a freshly 18 girl how acted 12, we get it she’s pure and your not cry about it 😭


Anyways very disappointed with this book, I was going to try to push through but I just read spoilers instead and yeah I don’t reckon it gets any better.

this was a great book the characters were lovable and relatable Abbie has a way of writing that makes you feel like you're in the books and feeling their emotions this book is a rollercoaster. to say the least

This was my first book from Abbie. I've been following her journey on YouTube and I'm so glad to read the outcome. On my way to read her debut novel because I know it's going to be just as awesome!

This was my first novel by Abbie Emmons and I absolutely loved it. This is the beautiful love story between Orca and her one true love. Gorgeous prose and fantastic pacing.

Orca lives on an otherwise uninhabited island with her father, the lighthouse keeper. They live a simple existence, free of most of the complications of modern day life. She dreams of visiting the mainland, what she calls the Otherworld. One day, she finds a bag washed up on the beach. Inside the bag is a cell phone and that begins her adventure.

When she answers the ringing phone, Orca talks to Jack, who is trying to find his brother, Adam. A sea plane pilot, Adam has gone missing after his plane went down at sea and the Coast Guard has called off the search. Orca agrees to scour her island to look for Adam. After two days, Orca finds a collapsed, unconscious Adam on her doorstep. As Orca develops relationships with both brothers, her life is forever changed.

This story has it all. It’s a love story that tugs at every heartstring. It’s a coming of age story for both Orca and Jack. It’s got family drama for both Orca and the brothers. It was emotional, captivating and poignant. Highly recommend.

This is a book I would have loved as a teenager, but enjoyed just the same as an adult. It felt very cinematic and was really difficult to put down!

SPOILERS AHEAD:
The Otherworld by Abbie Emmons is like a spark of magic. The love triangle is gripping, the aesthetic is well-developed, and the characters are believable. The book is full of the immersive descriptions, strong character voices, and unique perspectives. It tells the story of Orca Monroe, a teenage girl who has spent her entire life guarding a lighthouse with her father. She’s never met another person, and her connection to the outside world is very restricted. But when a pilot named Adam Stevenson crashes his plane on her island and appears at her doorstep, injured and helpless, Orca is finally given the opportunity to get a taste of the mainland. She quickly falls in love with Adam, and follows him back to the mainland to explore the world that she’s never gotten to see, meeting his brother, Jack, and exploring her heritage along the way. Although there were a few drawbacks to the work, overall the Story Fortress team was honored to read Abbie Emmons’s newest novel as an ARC. Here are three elements that were especially well-done, along with three things that could’ve used some improvement.
1. Jack’s outstanding character arc. Many books in the romance genre feature an essentially selfish love interest. Sure, they care about the main character and go out of their way for them, but they tend to seem to do this only for the sake of maintaining the relationship. The character will be in the relationship for self-fulfillment, and rarely anything more. And the worst part is, the author never points this out as a bad thing, giving the message that this kind of selfishness is completely okay. Jack started out as a selfish character like this, but by the end of the book he realized how wrong he had been. Abbie, unlike other YA novelists, showed this selfish thinking as the flaw that it is. In the end, Jack realizes that he wasn’t experiencing true love, and was only pursuing Orca to fulfill himself. This realization gave a perfect ending to Jack’s character arc and made the novel excel.
2. Meaningful Parent-Relationships. Another thing I almost never see YA novels attempt is a solid parent-child relationship. Most often the parents are out of the picture, leaving the brave hero to try and face their fears alone. However, In the Otherworld, both Orca’s father and Mrs. Stevenson were involved in their children's lives and helped them along the way. Mrs. Stevenson, Jack and Adam’s mom, was especially wise in comforting her son’s time of need. And even though Orca rebelled against her father to explore the mainland, she ended up returning to ask for forgiveness, with a deeper understanding of her father’s actions and an even stronger comprehension of how important her relationship with him was. Having this much respect for the parent-child relationship was heartwarming, as well as being something that almost never happens in this genre.
3. A Well-done Love Triangle. While there were some aspects of the romance we certainly didn’t enjoy (which we talk about below) there were some good parts too! When the book starts out, it’s hard to tell who Orca is going to end up with. Many love triangles make it apparent right off the bat who the main character is into, but in this case, the love triangle remains a mystery. The constant ‘who will she pick’ made the plot incredibly suspenseful. About a half of the way through, however, it does become clear that Adam is Orca’s true love and the suspense of the love triangle is dropped. Even then, what this book lacked in suspense made up for in loveable romance. Orca and Adam were instantly shippable, and their insta-love was made believable through their immediate romantic chemistry. Though the romance went down an intense path in the second half of the book, both the love triangle and Orca and Adam’s relationship served as a wonderful start to this tale.
Now, as great as these elements were, there were also three major drawbacks to the novel.
1. The romantic tension was not needed. One of the worst parts of the book was the needless romantic tension throughout the second half. Orca and Adam are essentially engaged throughout most of the book. Their attraction made sense, and Abbie even managed to make the fact that they fell in love within two days believable. But what was hard to believe was the tension that resulted from their decision to keep their commitment to each other a secret. At first, the secrecy made sense. Adam didn’t know how he could explain falling in love with a girl in two days, especially when he was ten years older than her. On top of that, he wanted Orca to be able to meet new people of both genders and experience true friendship without having to worry about hurting her relationship with the first person she had ever met. So they decided to keep their love a secret. But once Jack began escalating his relationship with Orca, things should have changed.
2. The romantic tension was a detriment to all three main characters. Both Orca and Adam stood by while Jack dated, flirted with, and even kissed Orca. Neither of them spoke up, which made all three of the main characters look much worse throughout the second half. Adam looked like a coward for not defending Orca, Orca looked clueless for not picking up on Jack’s very obvious desire to grow intimate with her, and Jack looked manipulative for steamrolling over Orca’s gentle protests and insisting that he flirt with, date, and kiss her as much as he wanted. On top of this, the entire situation could have been resolved by a simple conversation between the three of them -- one where Orca admitted that she couldn’t date Jack and that she and Adam were engaged. Instead, the romantic tension stretched on, further hurting our perception of the three leads.
3. The second half lost direction. Because of the overwhelming amount of time spent on developing the romantic tension between the characters, the second half lost direction. Neither Orca, Adam, or Jack were really driving the plot any more. While the first half was full of explosive character decisions that determined the direction of the work, the second half was a stalemate, where a secret relationship and half-truths held all three protagonists from driving the plot forward. Orca wanted to see “the outside world,” but wasn’t forced to make any character decisions along the way. She and Adam explored her heritage, but since she had always cared more for seeing the world than finding out what had happened to her mother, this subplot was uninteresting. And although it taught Orca some important lessons about the value of family, it had the laid-back atmosphere of watching her and Adam hang out as a couple rather than the suspense that comes with discovering long-forgotten family secrets.
On top of this, although Adam and Orca recognized the serious relational tensions that were due to explode at any moment, they did not work toward a resolution. This made it seem as though the tension that was supposed to be driving the book forward was of little consequence to the characters, since they made no effort to resolve or even address it.
Overall, this book had an intriguing premise, compelling characters, and a dynamite first half. It lost drive, stakes, and strong characters by combining needless romantic tension with indecisive protagonists near the end, but overall it was a pleasant, aesthetic summer read. With our few warnings in mind, I hope you read and enjoy The Otherworld as much as we did.

I want to start by telling you about the author's ability to describe the environment without being too descriptive and at the same time without seeming to describe the environment. It may not make sense but it has such a cozy vibe. For those who don't like slow starts, I must point out that this is one of the cases. I loved the author's writing, I had never read anything by Abbie Emmons but I really liked the way she created the main character, Orca Monroe.
I really liked the integration between her and Adam, the philosophical conversations and all the teachings that he gives her without her realizing it (although in the end she reaches these conclusions). As for the interactions between Adam's brother, Jack, and Orca...I can't say the same. For me, Jack at the beginning of this book was an incredible character and one that I really loved and felt every anguish. However, his attitudes changed drastically and I started to hate him, which made me not like the chapters where his point of view is read so much.😅

In addition to the great detail that is Jack, we have several temporal situations and attitudes of the characters that I don't understand, in addition to feeling that it was a very instantaneous love.
However, I recommend it to anyone who likes books with a more cozy vibe, with a possible love triangle where there are 2 brothers, where there is a lot of talk about youthful attitudes, the importance of family, and hearing all sides of the story before concluding something. about the same.

Thank you to NetGalley & Abbie Emmons for the opportunity to read and review this book before it's publication date! This in no way affected my review, opinions are my own.

Writing felt a bit too juvenile to hold interest - characters felt wooden and two dimensional.

I loved Abbie Emmon’s debut novel, 100 Days of Sunlight, so was optimistic about reading her new book, The Otherworld, which follows Orca Monroe’s relationships with her protective father, and two potential love interests, Jack and Adam. Jack is searching Orca’s island home, looking for his brother, Adam, who has gone missing after a seaplane crash. Secrets, loyalty, romance, mystery, and relationships — and especially the location! — are all brought to the fore through Emmon’s beautiful prose.

However, I felt the romantic love triangle was a bit rushed and chaotic, and I struggled to get invested in either Orca and Adam or Orca and Jack. I did enjoy the multiple points of view from the characters, but did feel that there were too many red flags in the relationships for my liking, and I struggled with the men in Orca’s life influencing and/or prohibiting her from doing things. By the time Orca was making her own choices, they didn’t feel climatic, only meh. In the end, it was an okay read.

I received an e-ARC from the author through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

There are books and stories that are quiet and life changing and this was one. The Other World by Abbie Emmons was a soul piercing treat that I was not expecting.... a book for a lover of books to encounter.

There's something that happens in theatre when an actor masters their character. As the saying goes, "The actor just disappears for a while", because the spirit of the character has completely taken over their physical body to tell the story.

Reading this book is just like that. The Otherworld pulled me in from the very first page and took me over. Short of a very disruptive distraction in real life (that often scared me out of my reading stupor), there is no escaping this story. Abbie Emmons characters all feel 3D and alive, and she's completely mastered their individual voices--an amazing feat for a book of alternating narrators. As the story progresses, you're left wondering if we'll get another narrator than was originally set up, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

As a storyteller myself (as well as a teacher), a big pet peeve in writing are inconsistencies. And while there was one small one, I'm not even mad about it because of the situation in which that inconsistency came out. It was a detail about a character, and in the moment, I probably would've changed my mind about that particular thing myself. The reason I bring this up is not to scold Abbie Emmons for missing this detail in the editing process; I actually really like that it's there. So much of this story is about our main female character, Orca, finding her own way, and I really like this moment of drastic reversal in a part of the story where things have been mostly worked out. Intentional or not, it is a wonderful moment that demonstrates a person's life is ever-evolving.

For future readers:
- first-person narration
- multiple narrators
- themes of innocence, self-discovery, heartbreak & love, adventure, and family
- clean enough to use in a classroom (I'd recommend late high school, as the protagonist is newly 18, but very innocent due to being sheltered all her life)
- heavy on the romance

If you are in need of a book to reignite your love of reading, I could not recommend a better book.