Book Review: When the World Was Flat (and we were in love) - Ingrid Jonach

Title: When the World Was Flat (and we were in love)

Author: Ingrid Jonach

Release Date: September 3rd 2013

Publisher: Strange Chemistry

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: finished copy from publisher

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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.

Oh, wow. I've read quite a few sci-fi books in this sub-genre—I refuse to say which because it's a big fat spoiler!—but not one of them rocked my socks off as much as When the World Was Flat (I'll refer to it as WTWWF from this point on) did. Ingrid Jonach knows how to captivate her readers right from the first page with a perfect balance of awe-inspiring prose and unforgettable characters.

WTWWF is a book that slowly but surely and deftly revealed its secrets. The matter of Lillie's nightmares was shrouded with utter mystery, making me think this story was psychological or something, and all of my theories were stabs in the dark—it's that unpredictable. A book that keeps me guessing is a book that keeps me reading, and this one was seriously unputdownable.

The characters in here are ones I imagine I'd enjoy reading about even if they were to be written into a whole other story. They all had this depth to them, not to mention a shared sense of humor that had me chuckling several times.

"If he takes you to an abandoned farmhouse, slaughterhouse, warehouse," Sylv ticked them off her fingers, "nuthouse, trainhouse—"

"Trainhouse?" Jo and I asked in sync.

Sylv grimaced. "I would have said train station, but I was going for a theme." 

And then, just a few sentences later:

Sylv shrugged. "You can thank me when he turns out to be a serial killer. Or worse."

"What could be worse than a serial killer?" Jo asked.

"A virgin?" Sylv suggested with a smirk.

I can talk about Lillie and Tom at length, but really, all you have to know about them without being spoiler-y is that they're complex, lovable characters, and I'd much rather talk about their romance. Lillie and Tom had a love story to rival Luce and Daniel's (from Fallen by Lauren Kate, so if you've read that, *wink* *wink*). Although Tom initially came across as having the emotional and social capacity of a rock, I don't know how Lillie got the idea that he hated her. He was the unfriendly new kid, but if I were her, I wouldn't take it that just because he wasn't all smiles meant he hated me. Or am I forgetting a flip-off scene here? Anyway, all the pushing and pulling equated to holy sexual tension! And I really liked that even though their emotionally-frustrating relationship got the spotlight, it didn't take up the whole stage. The other characters, particularly Lillie's best friends, moved forward with them—a good thing because if you can't tell from the quotes above, I really loved them too.

The science behind this book was not unraveled all at once, which really confused me at first, but not to worry, I assure you that everything made sense in the end. And speaking of, it's hard to decide whether that ending was more on the bitter or the sweet side; I feel a longing smile forming on my face when I think of it.

MY FAVORITE PART was Jackson's peer pressure moment, and the scenes following that :3

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