The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard, a book review

I read about The Other Valley from one of my Bookworms monthly linkers but I can’t find it now, so if it was you let me know and I’ll link back to you.

The Blurb

Sixteen-year-old Odile Ozanne is an awkward, quiet girl, but everyone knows she’s destined to land a coveted seat on the Conseil. In her apprenticeship, she competes to become one of the judges to decide who amongst the town’s residents may travel across the border. If she earns the position, she’ll decree who may be escorted deep into the woods, who may cross the border’s barbed wire fence, who may make the arduous trek over the western mountain range—or perhaps the eastern range—to descend into the next valley over. It’s the same valley, the same town. However, to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness. The only border crossings permitted by the Conseil are mourning tours: furtive viewings of the dead in towns where the dead are still alive.

Odile, wise beyond her years, will surely pass the Conseil’s vetting. But when she happens upon a mourning tour she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes her dear friend Edme’s parents have crossed the border from the east, from twenty years in the future, to view their son still alive in Odile’s present. Edme, who’s so funny and light. Edme, who’s a violin virtuoso at just sixteen. Edme, who’s the first boy to even see Odile, to really like her…. And it’s Edme who’s going to die.

Sworn to secrecy by the Conseil in order to preserve the timeline, Odile finds herself drawn even closer to the doomed boy. When Edme dies far sooner than Odile expects, when she does nothing to thwart his fate, she’s deeply shaken. The loss, her foreknowledge, the weight of her rare and varied grief all throw Odile’s own future, her adult life, into a devastating, downward spiral.

My Review of The Other Valley

I listened to The Other Valley on Audible and the narrator added a lot to the story line giving it a feel of being set in some snowy valleys. A slight French tone gave the characters accents that suited their names. I read in the reviews that speech marks are missing, which is a bug bear of mine, but with Audio books you don’t notice this.

I found the topic fascinating which made me want to read the book. The main character, Odile, is a 16 year old girl who lives between two valleys, to the East you can travel 20 years into the past and to the West you can go 20 years into the future. Because messing with the timelines can be dangerous and chaotic, the valleys are guarded and visitors only allowed in special circumstances. For example, to visit a person who has died and they are having difficulty dealing with their grief. Or in the other direction, to visit someone who is about to be born in your timeline but you know you are dying and will never see them.

The visitors have to wear masks so that no-one in the timeline they are visiting knows why they are there and they are not allowed to interfere in any way. Anyone trying to escape from one valley to another usually has a fateful ending.

Odile the main character starts off as a 16 year old and lives with her mother. She is a bit of a misfit but does have some friends and her awkwardness just adds to her character. Her mother wanted to be a conseil who decides who can visit which valley but she missed out, so she pushes for Odile to become one. Only a few people are chosen for a very important job.

Then Odile sees the mask slip from a visitor and she knows them. She tells the authorities what she has seen and because of her loyalty she does well on the course to be a conseil and it looks like she’s going to make it.

In the next part we see Odile did not make conseil and is in fact a soldier that guards the lines between the valleys. 20 years have passed and Odile’s life seems to have taken a downward cycle.

Odile is a strange character, she is strong in her convictions but makes some unusual choices which ultimately destroy her own life. It’s hard to like or dislike her. But as her story unravels we get to understand more. I thought the ending was particularly interesting.

The book is very well written but I’m not overly keen on what I would describe as over descriptive writing. We don’t really need to hear the crack of every twig, or about the shape of every leaf. But it does add to the feeling of this strange world so I didn’t mind it so much. I just wanted to get on with the story and find out what the heck was going on.

I did enjoy this story though, I love the prospect of different dimensions and time travel.

If you could go 20 year forward or 20 years backwards who would you be going to see?

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