This book offers a fabulous blend of historical fiction and science fiction with alternative versions of characters and endings.
I learned a great deal about El Salvador and the civil war from this book and spent some time researching it myself as the book really brought this to life.
Neto’s story and his letters are incredible and I was really moved by this. The letters gave the story a realism and the ending destroyed me.
A beautiful read!

This book is a powerful and inventive story that blends history, love and science fiction into something truly memorable.

Set between Cambridge in 2018 and Havana in 1978, it follows Ana and Luis as they search for answers about their fractured relationship and their family history, while the story of Neto and Rafael explores forbidden love during the Salvadoran war.

The use of The Defractor, a device that allows glimpses into alternate lives, adds a fascinating layer, asking whether what might have been could ever heal what is.

I especially loved Neto’s letters. They revealed such a tender, vulnerable side to him that contrasted beautifully with his stoic exterior, and they gave the story real heart. The shifting timelines and alternate realities were handled with care, making the book thought provoking without ever losing its emotional pull.

This is a moving and imaginative debut that combines displacement, belonging, loss and love with remarkable skill. Highly recommended.

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Archive of Unknown Universes had me gripped at the title! It’s not my usual kind of book, but the premise sounded so interesting I had to give it a go!
Overall, I liked it. It’s great if you love cool technology, history (specifically political revolutions!), family drama and star crossed romance!
There is a lot that feels very relevant to life today.
I liked the dual timelines (2018 Cambridge and 1978 El Salvador). I love all the parallels that Reyes brought to life between the two timelines.
I especially loved Reyes’ depiction of love. How it’s both a personal political form of resistance, especially queer love.
I enjoyed this, Reyes’ writing flows beautifully so it makes a joy to read!

In 1978, during the Salvadoran civil war, a romance kindles between Neto, a young Salvadoran revolutionary, and Rafael, a Nicaraguan sympathiser who works forging documents. In our timeline, the US intervenes in the conflict and the Salvadoran resistance is crushed. But in an alternate timeline, the US stays out and a communist government reshapes El Salvador's history. Neto and Rafael, too, have radically different fates that are tied to the destiny of their country, although they always struggle with their homosexuality. In 2018, Ana, a Salvadoran American student at Harvard, uses a device called a Defractor to glimpse these different timelines, which shakes her relationship with boyfriend Luis, Neto's great-nephew, as well as shedding light on his family history. Archive of Unknown Universes, Ruben Reyes Jr.'s debut novel, has such a rich concept; there are so many possibilities in tying together the story of a single love affair with the geopolitical consequences of El Salvador's war. But the best way I can describe it is underbaked. I just couldn't invest in any of the characters, and I was sad that Reyes ended up having so little to say about... El Salvador. The focus is much more on romantic angst. The prose is really wobbly, with awkward dialogue and lots of telling. And the Defractor is such a weird addition to the narrative; its quirkiness feels like it belongs in a much more playful multiverse novel like Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time, and its existence poses too many questions that Reyes clearly doesn't want to answer. Honestly, I didn't think the SF trappings were necessary here, as we could have explored alternate universes without this McGuffin. So disappointing.