Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves

In which a boy finds himself caught up in an inter-dimensional war.

Joey is living a normal life when he is hunted down and thrust into a war between factions seeking control of multiple dimensions of earth.  Interworld follows his initial adventures in other dimensions.

This review contains some moderate, non plot-ruining spoilers!

Interworld is a great example of most of the things I don't tend to like about kids' books.  It's like authors feel like they don't need to put as much effort in to a book if it's going to be for kids.  I know that's not totally accurate, but that's how Interworld made me feel since I know that Gaiman at least can do better.  The story was shallow, the characters were lacking in personality and the setting didn't make a ton of sense. 

The main character, Joey, was incredibly dull.  His character was a blank slate on which personality traits could have been placed.  He lacked any kind of personality other than the generic kind of protagonist pluck where he did things and they worked.  Joey also was not written like a kid in my opinion.  He seemed too self-aware for his age at all times.  Maybe that's personality, but it seemed like a way to tell the story rather than a trait that made any sense.

The setting was similarly lacking in my view.  It turned out that the protagonist soldiers in the inter-dimensional war were all people who could walk between dimensions who were all versions of Joey.  Joey's equivalents on every dimension.  It was insufficiently explained (not explained at all?) why this would be the case.  Why were the Joeys the ones with the dimension moving ability?  Didn't make a ton of sense.

While there were limitless dimensions in the setting, each character was completely one-dimensional.  The villains, other members of the army of Joeys and his family were all totally vanilla.  I KNOW Gaiman can do better, I can't figure out why this book was so lame!

In summary.  Decent story, boring characters, plot/setting that didn't make an overabundance of sense.  I do not recommend this book.  Read awesome young adult things like Hunger Games instead!

2/5 stars