A review by businesswife
The World Beyond the Horizon by Angela Funk

adventurous hopeful lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The World Beyond the Horizon is a fun sci-fi romance adventure following Noah, Celeste, Katalina, and Mark as they try to figure out how to stop their world from being destroyed in a collision with another planet. After meeting easy going, and a bit wild Celeste who is from another planet, Noah immediately decides to follow her to her home planet to help her save both their planets. The cousin Noah just reconnects with and her fiance also decide to follow along on this adventure. 

So, as far as the world(s) this is set in, they are beyond cool. Sundar, where the team starts, is flat, crumbling, and very like ours: mundane and kind of boring. It read as gray or just mundane to me generally. Then they jump to Fortun which is very Wonderland coded and it is just an explosion of colors, creatures, and VIBES. The world is painted, the hills are weird, there are mythical creatures (that are myths to even three of the characters). There is so much cool world building in this book that I loved so much. I will say, almost none of it is explained. Celeste, who is from the planet, has a very “well this is just how it is” approach to it all, no matter how weird it all is. This is a very ‘hand wave’ sci-fi / fantasy book so if you like an explained world building system this will not be for you. For example, there is a district of the city that's just fish. They aren’t awake or anything, I’m not sure if they are holograms or if they were just fish, and it was very neat but not explained. I like a low explanation world build, but even I struggled with this.

Plot wise, I found the beginning of this book really slow to get going. For me it felt like nothing was really happening until like 50% through. There were a lot of atmospheric things, world building, and character work but not a ton of plot happened even though they talked a lot about how important it was for them to get to everything. Once they finally got going, it was exciting and I enjoyed the adventure vibe the story had but it didn’t go on for very long before the book ended and picks up in book two. So, just a bit slow to get going for me. 

Characters; I really liked Celeste. She is very fun, kind of a weirdo, and she really fits the Wonderland vibe. She just does whatever she wants and tells you nothing. I also really like her handle on her grief around her brother and how much she helps Noah through his grief throughout, but especially towards the very end of the book. Noah is a bit challenging. I think he portrays grief very well, and I love when authors write the anger side of grief. I think it's missed a lot. He is thick in his sadness and anger and I think that is done well. My issue with him is that for like 50% of this book he is only talking or thinking about either Celeste, Katalina, or his mother. It just felt like he should be a little focused on like the planets exploding, and of like the dragons, etc. Finally, for Katalina and Mark I honestly don’t get the point of them. I don’t really know why they came along at all. They consistently cause drama, interrupt the relationship development between Celeste and Noah, and Mark’s anger and issues and just… UGH. I also don’t love their relationship which fluctuates between weird awkwardness, Mark’s anger, and intense PDA sometimes which feels out of nowhere. In short I would rather them just not be in this book, I think I generally would have liked this book better without them in it. 

In short. I had some issues with this book but all and all this is a sweet book where two young folk fall in love and deal with intense grief together while trying to stop their worlds from colliding. 

Review by Nic @polycraftory on Instagram, Tumblr, and Tiktok, where I do book reviews and crafts with my polycule. If you are curious about my thoughts on more books, you can find me @businesswife on Storygraph.

I was given a copy of this book in order to provide an honest review! 
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