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Midnighters by Scott Westerfeld
Nov. 12th, 2008 09:11 pmI hadn't read any Scott Westerfeld before picking up the first volume in this YA trilogy, The Secret Hour. I'd been seeing good reviews and recommendations of the Uglies books, but My Library (qv) has the Midnighters books, so that's what I've been reading.
The basic premise is that in Bixby, Oklahoma, there's an extra hour at exactly midnight, which only the people born exactly at midnight can live in. The characters call it the blue hour, because as time stops for everyone else they see it in blue. Jessica Day has just moved to Bixby, and as a midnighter she is enchanted by the discovery of the midnight hour. But her enchantment soon turns to horror as it turns out that midnight is haunted by ancient and terrible shadows that take the shape of the humans' nightmares, and the shadows are hunting Jessica, specifically. Each of the midnighters has their own power (eg, maths, flying, mind-reading etc), and they need these to combat the shadows, and ultimately to find out what is really going on in Bixby.
I thought the books were absolutely terrific. Action packed, filled with good ideas, but with enough time for reflection and character development as well. And, the second book is not a saggy bridge between the first and third, but contains new revelations and developments that make it worth reading in its own right. I thought the five teenaged heroes/heroines were well-drawn, each of them with their own agendas, and as you see each through their own and through different characters' eyes your opinion of them changes too.
The adults have their own agendas too, good and bad, and as we learn more about what is going on and the history of what has gone on in the past, the more the judgements that we made when reading the first book are revised or undermined. I just love it when the author plays with your expectations, but is always just one step ahead of the reader. Highly recommended.
The basic premise is that in Bixby, Oklahoma, there's an extra hour at exactly midnight, which only the people born exactly at midnight can live in. The characters call it the blue hour, because as time stops for everyone else they see it in blue. Jessica Day has just moved to Bixby, and as a midnighter she is enchanted by the discovery of the midnight hour. But her enchantment soon turns to horror as it turns out that midnight is haunted by ancient and terrible shadows that take the shape of the humans' nightmares, and the shadows are hunting Jessica, specifically. Each of the midnighters has their own power (eg, maths, flying, mind-reading etc), and they need these to combat the shadows, and ultimately to find out what is really going on in Bixby.
I thought the books were absolutely terrific. Action packed, filled with good ideas, but with enough time for reflection and character development as well. And, the second book is not a saggy bridge between the first and third, but contains new revelations and developments that make it worth reading in its own right. I thought the five teenaged heroes/heroines were well-drawn, each of them with their own agendas, and as you see each through their own and through different characters' eyes your opinion of them changes too.
The adults have their own agendas too, good and bad, and as we learn more about what is going on and the history of what has gone on in the past, the more the judgements that we made when reading the first book are revised or undermined. I just love it when the author plays with your expectations, but is always just one step ahead of the reader. Highly recommended.
