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The Space Between Trees by Katie Williams

The Space Between Trees is a haunting coming-of-age novel about Evie, a quirky loner who finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time when her crush and sometimes friend, Joshua discovers a body in the woods. It turns out that the body is that of her childhood playmate. The death of Zabet leads to an unlikely friendship between Evie and the toughest girl in the school.

Evie is adept at spinning lies whenever she imagines she is in an awkward situation, but thanks to an over-active imagination she tends to make things far worse by lying. At the funeral, one such lie leads Evie into a complicated relationship with the deceased girl’s father. Before she realises what is happening, she is hunting for the killer, spinning more lies along the way and unwittingly putting her life in danger.

The narrative text reveals the quirky nature of Evie. The beginning of the book also reveals a young nervous girl, trying to make herself popular by lying and stretching the truth. By their actions and descriptions n the first chapters, you could easily be forgiven for thinking Joshua is older than he actually is, while Evie can appear to be younger than 16. Her actions definitely seem to be that of a young girl with a crush on an older man and getting excited whenever he looks her way. As the book progresses, she slowly starts to mature, realising she doesn’t have to lie to make or keep friends for example. Sometimes also, maturity is forced on her.

The book can be humorous in places because of Evie’s awkwardness and ability to embarrass herself. Some of her actions will also make readers cringe as they can instantly see what she has done is not a good idea. At the same time it is a moving story about growing up and unrequited love.
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RRP $39.99
Published by Chronicle Books and distributed by Southern Publishers Group

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