Review: The Other Valley

The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had a particularly difficult time reading this book. For one thing, the edition I read had no demarcation denoting when a conversation was taking place. For another thing, the philosophy was just too deep for me to really grasp. It is no wonder since the author has a PhD in philosophy! I also had some difficulty grasping in which direction we had to go to get to what timeline.

All in all, it was a semi-interesting book, but one that did not keep me captivated. I felt that there were too many descriptions of the surroundings, etc., and not enough straight information. There were some plot holes that were easy enough to ignore, too.

If you like deep philosophical debates and what amounts to time travel, you may enjoy this book much more than I did.

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SYNOPSIS: "A literary speculative novel about an isolated town neighbored by its own past and future

Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future."