Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't put this book down; Stupendous
Review: What makes thsi book incredible and it is incredibel is that it holds onto some very simple plot threads: Hilton can't sleep, a rcist is after his wife and his Nana saved him from drowning when he was a child.
That's the whole plot in a nutshell but what makes this book literally leap off of teh pages is not so much teh answers it gives to each of these plot questions but instead the further questions one asks.
Eventually you get to "What is death?"
That's what this whole novel boils down to and like Jacob's Ladder, Hilton can't accept the death of his Nana. And why can't he accept it, because he refused death and she exchanged herself for him. But when finally he starts to hear stories of people like him, people who were to die and didn't we start seeing how this is a master storyteller unraveling both a new question and a further answer. We then have to question everything that Hilton's existence has perpetuated---like the creation of his children, his marriage, his perception of reality. I wish that this book could've gone on and on but Hilton is disintergrating so quickly that we don't feel pity for him as much a driving urge for him to be released from this prison, which for him, is life.
And when you're in a book and you want the lead character to die, you know that something really good is going on. Not only should you buy this book but you should pass it on. The great thing about Ms. Due and people like Steven Barnes is that they're exploring another element of African-American fiction. Nice normal, middle to upper class Black folk who have Steven Spielberg-esque adevntures. What will eventually be a blendign of not just Black and White but Asian and Latino milieus is when children of all colors are visited by E.T. or when the Luke Skywalkers are Asian or when Indianan Jones is Latino. See that's when cretaivity, genius is exapanding and we're treated to the possibilities of what fiction, writing and imagination can be.
I agree that this book would make an excellent movie but I also think that Jacob's Ladder was a great film and I wouldn't want to see this terrific work unfairly compared to it and lose out because though they touch on the same theme of acknowledgement of mortality they approach it from two different directions, horror and horrifying. By the end we know why Hilton has been alive for so long, what he was "meant" to do, to be, to prevent and we suddenly get a new perspective on our everyday lives.
Made me run out and get my Soul to Keep and The Living Blood.
Rating:
Summary: A Book Waiting For A Movie
Review: Wow! That's my reaction to Tananarive Due's "The Between", the first of her books I've read, but not the last.Where are these new, young, Afro-American writers coming from and where did they pick up such remarkable gifts of story-telling? I have no idea, but thank God! There were times when the book upset me so much that I wanted to throw it across the room and other times when I wanted to hug it to me as the precious, finite gift it is. I'm still struggling to articulate my thoughts about Due's mystery/fantasy/horror novel that seems the creation of a joint venture between Stephen King and Walter Mosley or Kris Nelscott. What a ride! Read it yourself and, after you've picked yourself up off the floor, YOU tell ME what YOU think!! This is a book that begs to become a movie on the same level as "Jacob's Ladder." Great work, Ms. Due! More, please.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Read
Review: You really don't know where the book is going until the end. But, you are on the edge of your seat the whole time trying to figure it out. I really like this book a lot.
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