Book 11: Midnighters - The Secret Hour

I recently found a locally owned used book store in town, and the first time I visited I picked up Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters series. Book eleven was the first in the series, The Secret Hour.

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Book Summary:
When Jessica Day moves from Chicago to Bixby, Oklahoma, she has no idea that she is about to find a whole new world opened to her - a world in which there is a twenty-fifth hour to every day that has been compressed down into a mere moment. The world stands frozen during this blue time when the slithers and darklings come out to play, and only those born within seconds of midnight are able to move freely through this time, each with there own talent. They call themselves midnighters, and Jessica is one of them.

Book Review:
I was first introduced to Scott Westerfeld by his Uglies series (if you like dystopian novels and haven't read them, I would definitely recommend picking them up). I think he is an awesome story-teller and a pretty good writer. In The Secret Hour he does a great job of introducing the main characters and giving the reader just enough information about each of them to feel informed but still intrigued. I loved the concept of the book; the idea that there is this secret hour in which only a few people can move about is really interesting, and Westerfeld does a great job describing the back story for why this hour exists. I also really liked the fact that each midnighter had his or her own special ability that exists only during the blue time; a large part of the story was trying to figure out what Jessica's ability was and why the darklings and slithers wanted her dead so badly.

As I stated above, this is the first book in a series, and you can definitely tell. This is actually my biggest issue with the book as a whole. I honestly felt like a good bit of this story was just setting up the reader for the second novel. The buildup to the climax was really slow, and then I felt like the ending was rushed because so much of this book was spent giving us a lot of information on the blue time, like back story and rules the characters must follow. To me, all of this felt like Westerfeld was filling us in more because it would be useful for the second book than this one, even uncovering Jessica's ability seemed more like it was a plot device to move us to the next novel than the climax of this one.

I also found it slightly unbelievable that there were five midnighters in the small town of Bixby, and on top of that, they were all in high school within one year of each other. If the town is as small as the author makes it seem, it's unrealistic that there would be five people, in general, that were all born close enough to midnight to be able to walk freely in the secret hour. Stepping off of that near impossibility, if there would happen to be five of them, how plausible is it that they are all teenagers? How is there no adults who are awake during this time? I mean, there have to be more adults in the town than teens, so statistically there would be a much greater chance of there being five adults who were born around midnight than there would be of five teens being born around midnight. I realize that this is splitting hairs and that I probably thought way to much about this, but logically this makes absolutely no sense to me, even in the realm of science fiction and fantasy.

Overall, I really liked this novel. It was a easy read and a fun story. I would definitely recommend it, though more for preteens and teens than adults. There is minimal, if any, swearing and no sexual references other than kissing. Obviously there is a little bit of a spooky/supernatural/science fiction-y feel to the book, but I personally didn't have an issues with it and would have no problems allowing my young teen (if I had one) to read this.

My Rating: 7/10

Book 10: The Art of Fielding

So, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach was originally started as my ninth book, but I had some issues while reading it, and thus it became my tenth book.

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Book Summary:
For the first time, I am at a loss on how to summarize a book. Other than saying that it's a book that's sort of about baseball but sort of not, I've got nothing. So in order to give you something here, I'm just going to type the description from the cover. Here you go:

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets.

Book Review: 
Okay...now...where to start? It's not that I necessarily disliked this book, it's just that I didn't really like it much either. I'm kind of neutral about it, maybe slightly more to the side of dislike but not much. I thought it was decently written, and the characters were pretty well rounded, even if at times unbelievable. I also thought the book was going to have more to do with baseball than it did. Baseball is used basically just as a plot device to move the story along. There wasn't a lot that I really liked about this book. It started off well; actually I was really into it for the first fifty pages, but then it went downhill.

Here's the thing, I'm not a huge fan of books that have multiple main characters and jump around between the characters from chapter to chapter. I get confused on the timeline of events when this happens. So when after reading five straight chapters of this book being about Henry and it randomly jumped to Affenlight in chapter six, I was perplexed. I didn't realize that was coming and was really confused for the next couple chapters. After I got the hang of it, though, it wasn't so bad.

The main issues I have with this book deal the believability of the characters' actions, like, for instance, when Henry and Pella sleep together. I'm not saying that this stuff doesn't happen, but they basically just slept together because they were in a room alone at the same time, who cares if Mike gets hurt in the process. It just didn't fit with their characters personalities to me. Also, Owen sort of drove me crazy. I felt like he was written, purposefully, as this super stereotypical gay male, and it wasn't believable for me. The other thing I didn't like was that there were plot lines introduced in the book that were never wrapped up. This is not the type of book you write a sequel for, so I suppose the author just didn't think people would wonder whether Mike got over his pain killer addiction.

All in all, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I would probably never recommend it to someone. As far as swearing and sexual references go, both are present and abundant. There are multiple sex scenes (not overly graphic, but graphic enough), both hetero- and homosexual, along with a magnitude of swear words including multiple f-bombs.

My Rating: 4/10

Book 9: Insurgent

First off I'd like to start by telling you that this wasn't supposed to be book nine. This was supposed to be book ten, but I'm having a couple issues getting through my original book nine, so I stopped reading it for a day and read this book instead. I promise I will finish the other book, it will just take me a little longer than expected. So book nine is Insurgent by Veronica Roth

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*Spoiler warning! This is the second book in a series. If you have not read Divergent you may want to stop reading right now because there will be spoilers for it here.*

Book Summary:
Insurgent takes up where Divergent left off, Tris Prior has just helped to stop the Euridite simulation that was controlling the Dauntless causing them to kill the Abnegation. She and the remaining survivors (Four, Marcis, Caleb, and Peter included), must escape to the Amity grounds in hopes that they will be safe. When the Euridite and Dauntless traitors show up, they find themselves on the run, and the only people they can turn to are the factionless, who are large in number and who have been patiently waiting for their chance to usurp the factions.

In all the chaos, Tris must decide who to trust while trying to forgive herself for killing Will and overcome the grief of losing her parents.

My review:
I loved this book as much as I loved Divergent. It is fabulously written; Roth does a great job continuing Tris's inner struggle, only this time it is more about learning to forgive herself than trying to figure out what it means to be divergent - although she is still trying to completely understand this. Four's character was also written very well; I loved seeing him struggle between wanting to save Tris and wanting to let her go. Throughout most of the book, I wasn't sure what was going to happen between the two of them, if they were going to kiss or throw punches. There were a couple of surprising characters in this book, the one that goes from bad to good (well, semi-good) I totally called, but I was completely caught off gaurd by the biggest traitor in the book. I seriously yelled, "What?!" when the reveal occurred. I think the thing I like most about this book, however, was the ending. It definitely took me by surprise even though they've been leading up to that for the entirety of the two books.

There were very few things I didn't like about this book. One was the character of Tori (who in the first book helped to hide Tris's secret). All through this book, I felt like she had major secrets that she wasn't letting anyone in on, and by the end of the book, Tris begins wondering the same things. I'm hoping we find out more about her character in book three. Also, I wasn't a huge fan of the way they dealt with Jeanine. I felt going in that it would happen that way, but I was really hoping that it wouldn't. I would explain more about how I feel about this, but I don't want to give away too many spoilers.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book (after you've read Divergent) to anyone. Again, there is little, if any, swearing and only a few sexual references. There is one scene where Tris and Four get a little carried away, but there is nothing graphic and I honestly wasn't sure afterward if they had slept together or not.

So I am now (not-so) patiently waiting for book three, which doesn't come out until October. How am I going to make it through?!

My Rating: 9/10