Book Review: The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao

A brief and well-deserved moment for that fantastic cover! It's an absolutely stunning piece that I would love to have on my personal gallery wall. The art also managed to convey immediately that the The Elsewhere Express was going to have what I like to lovingly refer to as anime vibes, particularly in the vein of the films from Makoto Shinkai and Hayao Miyazaki.

The Elsewhere Express was written with a copious amount of whimsy and imagination. The details that this author dreamed up for the setting are fantastical and chaotic. The imagery tickled my brain in a very pleasing way, despite the fact that there was, most definitely, a lot going on when it came to the world. I really had a great deal of fun imagining the different train compartments, inhabitants and items when they were vividly introduced on page.

Stripped to its simplest form, the plot is about two strangers who find themselves aboard a train called The Elsewhere Express. As they journey through the train's various compartments, they learn more about its history, the other inhabitants and the threat to its continued existence... and find themselves roped into a journey to locate their place and help remove the threat. It truly sounds like a story that would be right up my alley, but alas, we spent a lot of time skimming the surface as we jumped from place to situation to place to memory to place to... you get the general idea, don't you? We didn't really have time to just soak in whatever new discovery was made (or reflect on the theme explored, or sit in the emotions) before we were whisked away to what came next, and that made me feel a little lost at times especially when the plot started getting a little more convoluted towards the end.

The characters, unfortunately, just didn't quite hit the mark for me. I could sympathize with both Raya and Q right after we were introduced to them, but I wasn't invested in either one enough to fully empathize with any of their experiences as they come face-to-face with some difficult situations. This was the same experience I had with the author's other novel Water Moon, and it makes me a little sad that the way this author does characters isn't a style that works for me.

To sum, The Elsewhere Express didn't quite deliver the overall impact that I'd been hoping for, though I did really enjoy the fantastical elements that brought this brand new to me fictional world to life. (It would translate really well to anime film format though, I have to say.)

The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao

Release Date: January 20, 2026

Publisher: Del Rey | Format: ARC

Source: ARC received from the publisher (Thank you!)

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