Review: Heisenberg's Groundhog Day
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 20, 2011
I received a free copy of this book for my review. Before reading the Space Between, my exposure with Sokoloff's works had been limited to her blog and her book, Screenwriting Tricks For Authors and Screenwriters. Since reading The Space Between, I started reading The Unseen. The Space Between is targeted for the YA audience, several decades removed from where I am in my sojourn. That notwithstanding, I enjoyed the novel. Sokoloff is gifted in talking a complex subject, quantrum mechanics, and making parts of it reader accessible and applicable to the thrust of the novel. The subject matter has been described as dark with an ambiance of verboten added to the mix. The protagonist, Anna Sullivan, is a sixteen-year old girl infatuated with Tyler Marsh, another student at her school. Both characters share similar dreams. These dreams are primarily warnings of an impending massacre at their high school with Tyler being killed by his best male friend, Darren. The shared dreams are often repeated with additional aspects added each time as Anne seeks to ward off the doom. As the novel progresses we lean Anna's mother, believed to have abandoned the family, turns out to be a kind of savior for a young man named Jason Penman. Jason, in one world would have been kidnapped, but was saved due the actions of Anna's mother. When Anna seeks out Jason, she learns from him the intricacies of Heisenberg's quantrum mechanics and parallel worlds. It is here Anna realizes her dreams have been a kind of Heisenberg's Groundhog Day (This is my description. Not Anna's nor Sokoloff's). In the film, Bill Murray has these reoccurring Groundhog Days where he eventually learns to use the day to his advantage instead of fighting its reoccurence. Anna learns the same and applies the Observer Effect of quantrum mechanics to overcome the adversity. In the end we are left hanging as to what happens to Anna, but are lead to believe she is reunited with Tyler and her mother in a, hopefully, better world. Having started on Sokoloff's The Unseen, I can compare her writing style. The Unseen was written for a mature audience while the Space Between for young adults. This speaks to Sokoloff's flexibility to relate to different age groups, a skill for which she is to be commended.