The world is lagging, and fifteen-year-old Kari is the only one who can see the glitches.
To the students at her high school, Kari is "unimportant"-a quiet background character in yellow rainboots, lost between her Honduran heritage and her North American life. But when the world gets too loud, Kari retreats to The Between, a vivid metaphysical realm where her digital tablet becomes a tool of creation and her calico cat, Mika, transforms into a powerful guardian lynx.
But a parasitic force known as The Grey is spreading. Fed by social isolation and the sharp-edged cruelty of high school hierarchies, it is draining the saturation from reality and threatening to turn Kari's home into a hollow wireframe.
To save her family and her future, Kari must stop using The Between as a refuge and start using it as a bridge. Alongside her friend Leo-who carries his own flickering connection to her world-Kari must journey to the source of her power in the mountains of Honduras.
In a race against a collapsing reality, Kari will discover that she isn't just a glitch in the system. She is the Architect. And it's time to render a world where she finally lives in the light.
Themes: Dual Identity, Creative Empowerment, Overcoming Social Anxiety, Magical Realism.
Perfect for fans of: MirrorMask, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and The House of the Spirits.