The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor

Amy       

Lynnie    

young adult, fantasy, audiobook 

 

Maeve's father died when her world was lost in a magical accident seven years ago. After receiving a mysterious letter, she decides to go looking for answers through The Otherwhere Post - a magical mail service that uses a dangerous magic known as scriptomancy to enchant letters, allowing couriers to deliver them to other worlds. Posing as an apprentice for The Otherwhere Post, Maeve gets more than she bargained for. Her handsome mentor, Tristan, knows that she is lying about who she is and her roommate, Nan, insists that they should be friends and spend time together, despite Maeve's objections. Maeve has to figure out who at the academy, if anyone, she can trust and who is sending her threats and potentially trying to kill her - all before anyone figures out her true identity.   

Lynnie's Review 

I was not expecting to love The Otherwhere Post nearly as much as I did! Emily J. Taylor created a world with fascinating characters, imaginative world-building and a plot that kept me interested throughout.

There were definitely times reading this book that I wanted to throttle Maeve. She made some very stupid decisions along the way and was generally saved from her own stupidity by those around her; what a lucky girl. I guess that's the joy (and the curse) of reading a YA book as an adult - we can see the better choices a little more clearly. That said, I generally enjoyed Maeve and the other characters in the book.

More than that though, the world-building was fantastic. Taylor created a world that I could clearly imagine, including all the magical flourishes. As a lover of all things pen and ink, I also really enjoyed the descriptions of quills and ink colors more than the average YA reader might, though I don't think Taylor went on too long with those descriptions.

I gave it 4 1/2 hearts because there were times when I felt things got a bit repetitive or predictable. Overall though, I loved it & will enthusiastically recommend this one. I read the book and listened to the audiobook and I think that Barrie Kreinik did a wonderful job! I loved her assortment of voices and accents and could clearly tell which character was speaking at any time.  

Amy's Review 

Sadly, I didn’t enjoy the Otherwhere Post like everyone else, including Lynnie. She and I normally don’t come away with such different opinions on a book! There are very few books for which our ratings different by more than 1-1/2 hearts—especially where we scored it on opposite sides of the average 3 hearts. If any of our readers decide to give The Otherwhere Post a try, I’d love to know what you thought!

First, I didn’t like the protagonist. Maeve was a selfish person. She assumed the identity of an innocent person, stealing that person’s opportunity at a prestigious school. Granted, about 2/3 of the way through the novel, the reader finally reaches a better understanding of Maeve’s issues and why she can’t seem to care about anyone besides herself. And she grows into a less selfish person gradually. However, the author never sold me on why Maeve’s roommate, Nan, and mentor, Tristan, liked her so much. She avoided them whenever possible, ran off multiple times, stole things, broke all the rules for her own purposes, and yet they always forgave her and attempted to be closer to her. The secondary characters were much better people.

Secondly, I didn’t love Emily J. Taylor’s writing. The beginning of the story was very “beginning of the story”-ish. I mean, the background wasn’t creatively, organically described and was just sort of an information dump of the situation to familiarize the reader with Maeve’s world. And, while there were moments of excitement and creativity, there were also many moments that were spelled out in mundane excess. And it was clunky—not successfully masking the filler sections that were meant to keep the story flowing from one major scene to another. The author also let situations drop without continuation or closure. For example, there was a big deal made about horses at the beginning, implying Maeve would have some work to do, and the novel just dropped that storyline. There were a lot of overly convenient situations which I often forgive in a novel I’m enjoying but just bugged me more in this one.

To make matter’s worse, the audiobook narrator, Barrie Kreinick, with whom I am normally impressed, spoke so robotically for her “narrator voice” that I thought it was an AI narrator! I think she was trying to sound like Julie Andrews but her delivery was too unemotional for this book. There was no warmth when she was speaking as the narrator. She did a great job while voicing the characters, however, showing off the skills I know she possesses. I think she just made a bad choice when voicing this narrator. Therefore, I’m giving her a B- because the narrator does most of the talking in this novel and I was disappointed.