“She was on a journey. She wasn’t gay or straight or even bisexual. And it didn’t matter. How she felt was personal, hers. How she felt belonged to her.”

A WORLD BETWEEN is a nuanced, warm, honest, endearing novel told over 13 years from two perspectives: Eleanor Suzuki’s and Leena Shah’s. It is the story of their whirlwind college romance, deep friendship, and everything that follows after. I was sucked in immediately by the mid-aughts college nostalgia, but I stayed for the complex characters, the evolution of their relationship, and the deep, insightful writing. Both Eleanor and Leena were full of such realistic yet endearing quirks, hang ups, and limits that all somehow made me love them more. I felt personally invested in this story, and even defensive of the characters and their individual journeys, in a way that I haven’t for a long time. I very much look forward to reading whatever Hashimoto writes next.