Saturday, September 26, 2015

Review: The Girl at Midnight

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey Goodreads | Amazon

Published by Delacorte Press April 28, 2015

357 Pages

Source: Library

Bookologists Analysis: Wings meet dragons plus a hint of teenage people. Another steady YA fantasy that is easy to get through.

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she's ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it's time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, though if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it's how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take it.

But some jobs aren't as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.
 


I first caught The Girl at Midnight on a blog post and was in need of a solid fantasy book. Often I need a few books to fall back on, and The Girl at Midnight does that for me. There is a love triangle, strong female friendship, and an orphan girl. Yet it isn't a rags to riches story where the orphan gets to be blessed by whoever she ends up with. It's a new spin on the classic take.

As always, the most important bond is friendship. Echo doesn't want to compromise her friends to be dragged down with her as she searches for the Firebird, rather she wants them to believe the worst of her for the greater good. Most of the book is about sacrificing and whether collateral damage is worth it to end the Avicen war. Echo might be a thief with looser morals than most, but she knows where it really counts.

I liked The Girl at Midnight and I'm interested where it will end up. The book sucked me in while reading it, but it feels more like a passing obsession. I'll be on the lookout for the second book to see how the arc of war continues. While it could've been a stand alone novel with a satisfying plot ending, there are a few loose strings left artfully undone.



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