By Cynthia Ayala

The Firebird allows people to cross over into alternate dimensions. Because of her parents’ invention and the fact that Marguerite can go between dimensions unharmed, she has caught the attention of enemies across the multiverse, enemies that have now attacked her boyfriend Paul, splintering his consciousness, sending it across the multiverse. Now Marguerite has no choice but to search for each splinter of Paul’s soul, sending her through dimensions, forcing her to see different sides of him which makes her question the destiny she thought they shared.

Published on November 3, 2015, by HarperTeen, Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray is the second novel on her young adult sci-fi Firebird trilogy.

This is one of those novels that is simply amazing from start to finish. It’s a novel that brings to life the characters and the story through them to give every scene such powerful meaning. There is more than just romance here in the storytelling, there’s action, there’s self-discovery, there’s hope. Together they mold an incredible story that keeps the reader hooked.

Marguerite herself is such a strong character who must go on this journey to help the people she loves. In the first novel is was all about capturing a traitor, now it’s she as to traverse the multiverse again to save the man she loves. But while she’s on this journey she encounters other versions of who he is, all of them have the same sort of underlining personality traits, but given their different circumstances, they evolve in different ways and that is such an incredible situation to be in to think about life and the various directions that it can go in. Gray goes into that in depth as she has Marguerite explore the universes to see not just other sides of the man she loves but also other sides of herself and the people closest to her. It shakes something in her character, something about it scares her and while she’s questioning her own life and her own decisions, the reader sees her develop into an even stronger and more determined character. That character growth, both for her and Theo grow and so do their dynamics and it reflects so much about who they are versus who their counterparts are. Their personalities shine through the story as they go on this journey to save the person closest to them while discovering that there are other parts of themselves that they maybe don’t want to acknowledge.

There is just so much depth in this novel as it deals with the multiverse and identity as well love and romance and what that means. It challenges the idea of a soulmate while also reinforcing it. Romance is nothing if not filled with complications and the fact that Gray is able to tap into that, to show the questioning that resides mainly within identity highlights something very human: a relationship is what you make it, it’s not perfect, but it the love is there and it’s strong, anything is worth it to save and protect it, complications be damned. That’s such a powerful aspect to delve into when writing about something as expansive as the multiverse because there are so many facets to that that a story can go anywhere and where Gray has taken is astounding and addictive. (★★★★★ | A+)

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