When The World Was Flat (and we were in love) - Ingrid Jonach
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Publisher - Strange Chemistry
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'Looking back, I wonder if I had an inkling that my life was about to go from ordinary to extraordinary.
When
sixteen-year-old Lillie Hart meets the gorgeous and mysterious Tom
Windsor-Smith for the first time, it’s like fireworks — for her, anyway.
Tom looks as if he would be more interested in watching paint dry; as
if he is bored by her and by her small Nebraskan town in general.
But
as Lillie begins to break down the walls of his seemingly impenetrable
exterior, she starts to suspect that he holds the answers to her
reoccurring nightmares and to the impossible memories which keep
bubbling to the surface of her mind — memories of the two of them,
together and in love.
When she at last learns the truth about
their connection, Lillie discovers that Tom has been hiding an
earth-shattering secret; a secret that is bigger — and much more
terrifying and beautiful — than the both of them. She also discovers
that once you finally understand that the world is round, there is no
way to make it flat again.
An epic and deeply original sci-fi
romance, taking inspiration from Albert Einstein’s theories and the
world-bending wonder of true love itself.' - Goodreads
When The World Was Flat (and we were in love) tells the story of Lillie and Tom, a somewhat unorthodox love story. Lillis is plagued by dreams & nightmares that feel too real at times and always seem to involve her death at the hands of the same unknown assailant.When she meets Tom this feeling of deja vu only increases, certain that she knows him and that somehow, somewhere the two of them were close. What only adds to her confusion is the knowledge that Tom seems to be doing everything possible to avoid talking to her or spending time with her for reasons we can only begin to guess at until further into the story.
When I first read about When The World Was Flat I was intrigued by the fact that it was described as a sci-fi romance influenced by Albert Einstein's
unfinished Theory of Everything, not exactly a concept you come across every day. I don't have a scientific bone in my body but I do love reading sci-fi so thought why not, it does sound like it could be an amazing read and I was right. Tom & Lillie's story was written so wonderfully and so clearly that even though I did get a bit stuck in places where the more detailed explanations of how the worlds worked I fell in love with Ingrid Jonach's writing almost straightaway.
At first, I wasn't sure whether I liked Lillie, she seemed to be very judgmental about her best friends Jo & Sylv, one for being overweight and one for being a teenage man-eater and without being too spoiler-y further on in the book she does appear to abandon both of them at times when they needed her support. Tom was the same, didn't know if I liked him or not. Ignoring Lillie to the point of rudeness but still seeking her out and being jealous of her relationship with Jackson (an old friend) didn't make much sense until you read about his situation and understand what's happened to him, it's a heartbreaking situation for both of them.
Although I assume Lille & Tom's story is finished it would so easy to set more stories in the world that Jonach has created. The theories of merging and sliding could be applied to so many storylines and thanks to the parallel worlds idea could be set in any number of different worlds, not necessarily the one used in WTWWF. One other thing I loved but people might find slightly schmaltzy was the idea behind soulmates, that your soulmate is someone you've loved before, in one of the parallel worlds. I thought this was such a plausible explanation, just a shame it couldn't actually happen! Between a beautifully simple but significant cover and beautiful writing WTWWF is far different from your usual YA/romance/sci-fi novel but one definitely worth reading and I look forward to seeing what Ingrid Jonach comes up with next.
Thanks to Strange Chemistry for providing with an electronic copy of WTWWF via Netgalley!
