Name: The Other Side of Gravity
ISBN: 9781530569229

Shelly Crane

My name is Maxton and I'm a trader. I live on a soulless planet where gravity, oxygen, and everything else are sold to the highest bidder on the black market. People are sold on the black market, too. You have to work really hard not to become one of those people. Pay your taxes, keep your friends and family close, and more than anything else-don't get caught by the Militia. But all the rules changed for me the day I found her. My name is Sophelia and I'm a stowaway. I've been a slave for almost as long as I can remember. Waiting for the one day, one second, for my proprietor to turn his head so I could run and never look back. Now I'm on the run. And on a planet where no one is on your side and people would turn you in for a good meal or a piece of a silver, being on the run on Landu is the last place you want to be. Until he found me. I won't survive without him. I can't breathe without her.

The Other Side of Gravity

Megan Williams

Shelly Crane is one of those authors that I will read anything of hers. I first fell in love with her writing with the Significance series, and I have continued to love her work with all the other novels she has published since. This book was no different. The Other Side of Gravity is definitely a great addition to Shelly Crane's publications. I loved her characters and the sci-fi twist. I can't wait to see what Crane writes up next after reading this novel!

I've read everything by Shelly Crane. More than a few times. It's come to the point, where I don't even both reading the synopsis anymore. Why bother? I know I'm going to like it. I say this about every book of hers, and not once has it been a let down.

 

The Other Side of Gravity was so much more.

 

Sophelia has been through a lot for being young. The world they live in, isn't like ours. Sophelia used to live in the stacks as it's called. A place where the poor live. It's gritty and not a very pleasant place to live, but as a child, she did okay there. Until something happens that sets into events that change her life. Suddenly, the slums don't seem so bad. Where she goes is much worse.

 

Fast forward about ten years, and she's finally breaking free. She's on the run to-hopefully-a better place. But then she runs into Maxton.

 

The one thing I love about Shelly Crane, is that the male characters she writes about, are amazing! You can't help but swoon and drool every time one is introduced (unless they're the bad guys!) Maxton was no different. I loved him immediately-even if he does begin on the wrong side of things. Once he meets Sopehlia, he knows she's different. And the second it clicked for him that he wanted her, and would do anything to be with her, he wasn't going to stop until he trusted her and believed her worth. He just wants her to feel free and whole. Here is a scene between them, which stuck with me:

 

"I've got you, Soph," I assure her, "I promise."

And then my hands slid to the backs of her legs as I picked her up, feeling smug knowing that the gasp she let loose wasn't for show but all too real, and then pressed her to the wall with my hips as I held her there tightly against me. In her eyes, I could see she didn't care that the Militia were on the way to us or that she could be about to float away into the atmosphere. No, there was only her and me, the wall against her back and the non-existent space between us."

 

Swoon.

 

The world is set up in such a way that fascinates me. I haven't read something like it before. A world where you have to pay for oxygen, fight to keep your home and work harder than ever before to stay alive. It's interesting to read about a world like this, how it's so different from the Earth they learned about in their one day of school. 

 

It was nice that we got to meet Maxton's family. They're a good bunch, and I hope to see them again in the next book.

 

There isn't a lot of stable side characters in this one. It isn't until toward the end when we finally meet two guys who will hopefully stick around for a while. They're pretty amusing to read, as twins who speak at the same time and have a good sense of humor. Here is a part I couldn't stop laughing at (Sophelia's POV):

 

"Let me at her, Rod!" Fletch fought against his brother's arms around his shoulder. "I'll teach her to dis the Snoop."

"I can't even with you guys!" I yelled in a huff.

Maxton finally came to my rescue. "Come on, guys, we've got to get serious.z'

"Snoop Dog is serious!" he yelled back. "He's a legend!"

"Elvis is a legend," Maxton argued back.

"Who?" both the twins said at the same time.

I smacked my hands over my face. "I give," I said through my fingers.

Maxton took a breath to calm himself from laughing and asked, "You two are freaking hopeless. How do you know who Snoop Dog is and not Elvis?"

Roddy once again answered, "Mom only allowed the classics in our home."

 

As you can see, the humor is great. It adds a lighter tone, especially when needed. 

 

The bad guys are bad, eliciting a shiver of fear and disgust whenever I hear him talk. I'm excited to see how everything will play out in book two!

 

This is told from both Maxton's and Sophelia's POV. It does end with a cliffhanger of sorts, and you'll be dying for the next one!

Pamela Alvarado

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.



Let me start by saying that I love Shelly Crane's Significance series. I adore it and reread every once in a while because I just can't seem to get tired of it. So I went into The Other Side of Gravity with great expectations. It's safe to say I was disappointed.

I don't know what happened to the writing here. I mean, I expected sappiness. Significance was overflowing with it, what with the destined soulmates things. But, this was... I don't think it went very well.




  My issues with this book




Too much exposition

Remember the Lord of Rings: The Return of the King, but the movie? How you'd think the movie was about to end but then another faux ending come in until finally, finally the real ending appeared? This was more or less like that, except that it was with the beginning.

We start with a sort of flash forward, which was okay, even though I had no idea of what was happening and I didn't care for any of the characters, at least not yet. Then, it was a scene that happened in the girl, Sophelia's childhood, which took forever to be done with.

I feel that flashforward was really unnecessary, and the childhood scene could've been shortened, or even completely cut out and perhaps added in bits through flashbacks.

If the story had started right off with Sophelia being a slave, it'd have been a hell of a lot more interesting hook, since that scene would've posed all sort of questions that would've piqued my curiosity in a better way.



The gasping

Yep, you heard me. If I didn't know better, I'd be concerned these characters have some sort of breathing problem.

The gasps are everywhere


"She's a convict."

I gasped because that word was only used on rare occasions...[]



Sometimes they don't, but they almost do it. Almost.



"Ten years is long enough. I think my debt is paid." I almost gasped. Almost.



My lips parted on a small gasp.



I couldn't stop the gasp that fell from my lips.



"One day, you're going to get used to me. And you'll stop gasping every time I touch you."

Huh. That last part doesn't seem likely.


Awkward dialogue is awkward
At first it's barely noticeable. The oddest thing is how people can't say 'bad words', like sex. Sex sex sex sex sex. Instead, they say 'coitus'.



It's the correct term, 'coitus', but c'mon, isn't it weird? Hardly a sin, but it does make for awkward sentences because the people we know just don't talk like that. It's a hard thing to accept in this story.

Besides that, eventually in the story, our two main characters meet a couple more, and it's the dialogue with them that just doesn't seem to flow. They're presented as these quirky, fun twins, but I just couldn't see them as real people with their own personalities. I found myself skipping the paragraphs of senseless conversations with them.

 
Speaking of the twins...
To expand a little on that, it seemed as if they have no other purpose than to direct our heroes into the 'right' direction. They legit appeared out of nowhere all 'Hey, you're the savior,  you should come with us because you're going to save us all.'

Okay, that was not an actual quote from the book, but that was the gist of it. When this happened, it became more clear that Sophelia and her companion had pretty much been doing nothing useful at all to advance the plot up until that point. They'd just been running from the law, which should sound exciting, but they make it seem a lot less than it should be.


"Furthermore," the other one started, not even listening to us, "who jumps the savior in the street? I mean you were really getting in there deep."
 
"No. First, she'll humilliate us for not bringing the savior home, then kill us."


Now these ones are from the book, and honestly, I found little evidence that would warrant calling Sophelia the savior.  I just want to say a couple of things about this.

 	* There's only one fictional savior in this world, and that's Emma Swan from OUAT 
 	* If there was another savior, it definitely wouldn't be Soph because she does literally nothing to earn this title. Sure, she's a brave girl, and I admire her for that. She has flaws, but she's also quite strong, but calling someone the 'savior' won't makes us believe it. Unless she's Emma Swan.


I was disappointed of my disappointment because I really expected to love this book. For now, I think I'll just stick to this author's other works and enjoy those.


Have you ever encountered a book by an author whose other books you have loved, and not liked it?

The Other Side of Gravity

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