ARC Review: Ida – Alison Evans

Book cover: three silhouettes of Ida stand in a shadowy landscape

How do people decide on a path, and find the drive to pursue what they want?

Ida struggles more than other young people to work this out. She can shift between parallel universes, allowing her to follow alternative paths.

One day Ida sees a shadowy, see-through doppelganger of herself on the train. She starts to wonder if she’s actually in control of her ability, and whether there are effects far beyond what she’s considered.

How can she know, anyway, whether one universe is ultimately better than another? And what if the continual shifting causes her to lose what is most important to her, just as she’s discovering what that is, and she can never find her way back?

I received an ARC of Ida from Netgalley. I chose to read it because I had heard a lot about this book, and I really liked the cover.

It’s #ownvoices for genderqueer and bisexual representation.

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I am a huge fan of the writing in this novel. The writing style is rather disruptive, jumpy and jaggered. I feel like that captures the essence of the story. It’s a story about parallel universes, and the main character is going from one universe to the other. Thus, it makes sense that the writing would portray the constant shifting of the universes as well as the constant shifting of how Ida feels due to her experiencing different universes. I’ve read reviews that state that some questions were left unanswered, however once again, I feel like this is part of the essence of the story. We don’t understand everything as Ida herself is thrust into a new situation of knowing that she hadn’t thought of before.

I thought it was really chilling, however, I’ll admit that I get scared really easy. But seriously, don’t tell me that seeing a person who looks just like you and who looks you straight in the eye won’t creep you out.

Since, it was so scary and intense, I couldn’t stop reading. I just can’t go to bed when I’m in the middle of a story like this, and I also am not able to put the book down, thus this book was also really fast read.

It has a diverse cast. Ida is biracial (Vietnamese and German Australian) and bisexual, and she has asthma. Daisy, Damaris and Adrastos are genderqueer. Frank is a transgender man. I can only speak for the biracial rep and asthma rep, and I thought that both were done quite well.

I would be totally interested in a sequel that takes place a few years after the events of Ida, as I think that a new story in the Ida universe would be fascinating. If that happens, please let there be more Damaris!

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I recommend Ida to everyone who enjoys a fast-paced and original story.

5 stars

Are you interested in reading Ida? If you have read it, what did you think of it?