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conulyGabi's baby brother survives. Both hers, and the alternate universe brother. I was crying when he was about to die, so this is important information.
When Sal's mother died some years ago his father, a physicist, told him that she was still alive in lots of other universes. That has to be the least comforting statement ever. Somewhat more prosaically, a counselor tried to teach him to meditate. The unexpected consequence of all this is that Sal learned how to meditate things back from alternate universes - things like his mother, and also dead chickens.
His father and stepmother know about his mother. Hard not to - there have been six or so of them, and every one of them flipped out upon seeing "her" husband walk through the door hugging and kissing his new wife. It's not clear if they know about the other things.
Sal is not supposed to bring ANYTHING back because making holes in the universe could possibly destroy it. Or maybe not, nobody knows. Additionally, bringing back his mother only comforts him a little bit for a little while, right until she starts screaming at his new stepmother and throwing things. (Nobody, at any point, brings up the question of what all this does to his alternate-universe mothers, none of whom realize they're in anything other than their home universe. All they know is that one minute they're at home with their son, the next their husband brings home a woman, wtf, rubbing his cheating right in their face, and then somehow none of it happened as they're returned to their REAL home. This has to be deeply upsetting to them on multiple levels, and I wish it had been brought up in the book. It might actually have been less upsetting for all of them if young Sal had simply told each of them outright "Sorry, my own mother is dead in this universe, I just hoped you could visit for a little bit before going home". Probably they wouldn't call their husband's new wife bad names or throw things.)
And yet, with all that, the "breaks the universe" part is actually the least important part of the book. It's really about friendship and middle school (the good parts) and family, and occasionally some multi-universe shenanigans. He name-checks both Terry Pratchett and Wrinkle In Time as favorites, which I think means that they are favorites of the author, because I definitely see both those influences here.
The setting is a bit confusing if you overthink it - it's either in some other, more futuristic universe, or the actual future. There are real sapient robots which can be citizens in Saudi Arabia (but not America), and self-driving cars are way more common than IRL, and prosthetics are somewhat more advanced - but still no cure for diabetes and, if anything, I think the author strived so hard for accuracy in that area that Sal's tech is actually ever-so-slightly behind the state-of-the-art diabetes devices in our real world... especially for what's available to well-educated, techy parents with a good income.
There is a lot of Spanish in this book. Not isolated words and phrases, or even short sentences, but entire paragraphs with no translation and just enough context to work out the most important parts - and there doesn't seem to be a glossary either. Poor readers (who tend to have trouble with context in reading) without much Spanish might find this book too much of a struggle. On the other hand, readers who speak Spanish and can at least sound it out might enjoy not having to guess at those parts - I always like reading a book and getting the references, and I liked it more as a child. I am certainly not fluent in Spanish, but I can read enough of it that I could work out what was being said.
Highly recommended, so long as you take that caveat into account.
When Sal's mother died some years ago his father, a physicist, told him that she was still alive in lots of other universes. That has to be the least comforting statement ever. Somewhat more prosaically, a counselor tried to teach him to meditate. The unexpected consequence of all this is that Sal learned how to meditate things back from alternate universes - things like his mother, and also dead chickens.
His father and stepmother know about his mother. Hard not to - there have been six or so of them, and every one of them flipped out upon seeing "her" husband walk through the door hugging and kissing his new wife. It's not clear if they know about the other things.
Sal is not supposed to bring ANYTHING back because making holes in the universe could possibly destroy it. Or maybe not, nobody knows. Additionally, bringing back his mother only comforts him a little bit for a little while, right until she starts screaming at his new stepmother and throwing things. (Nobody, at any point, brings up the question of what all this does to his alternate-universe mothers, none of whom realize they're in anything other than their home universe. All they know is that one minute they're at home with their son, the next their husband brings home a woman, wtf, rubbing his cheating right in their face, and then somehow none of it happened as they're returned to their REAL home. This has to be deeply upsetting to them on multiple levels, and I wish it had been brought up in the book. It might actually have been less upsetting for all of them if young Sal had simply told each of them outright "Sorry, my own mother is dead in this universe, I just hoped you could visit for a little bit before going home". Probably they wouldn't call their husband's new wife bad names or throw things.)
And yet, with all that, the "breaks the universe" part is actually the least important part of the book. It's really about friendship and middle school (the good parts) and family, and occasionally some multi-universe shenanigans. He name-checks both Terry Pratchett and Wrinkle In Time as favorites, which I think means that they are favorites of the author, because I definitely see both those influences here.
The setting is a bit confusing if you overthink it - it's either in some other, more futuristic universe, or the actual future. There are real sapient robots which can be citizens in Saudi Arabia (but not America), and self-driving cars are way more common than IRL, and prosthetics are somewhat more advanced - but still no cure for diabetes and, if anything, I think the author strived so hard for accuracy in that area that Sal's tech is actually ever-so-slightly behind the state-of-the-art diabetes devices in our real world... especially for what's available to well-educated, techy parents with a good income.
There is a lot of Spanish in this book. Not isolated words and phrases, or even short sentences, but entire paragraphs with no translation and just enough context to work out the most important parts - and there doesn't seem to be a glossary either. Poor readers (who tend to have trouble with context in reading) without much Spanish might find this book too much of a struggle. On the other hand, readers who speak Spanish and can at least sound it out might enjoy not having to guess at those parts - I always like reading a book and getting the references, and I liked it more as a child. I am certainly not fluent in Spanish, but I can read enough of it that I could work out what was being said.
Highly recommended, so long as you take that caveat into account.
