Westerfeld, Scott - Midnighters: The Secret Hour

[oyceter]

And with this, my Scott Westerfeld binge is over. Well, that is, until I can borrow more from yuneicorn or convince myself to buy more.

Bixby, Oklahoma is a very strange city where there is a hidden hour of the day, tucked in at midnight. The blue hour can only be experienced by those born at midnight (the Midnighters! v. clever), and they battle slither with thirteen-letter words, clean metal alloys and other things. The numerology bit are a little iffy to me. Anyway, so far, there are four midnighters in Bixby, each with his or her own special talent -- Dess is the mathy, warriory one who makes clean metal alloy weapons with thirteen-letter name, Rex is the keeper of Midnighter lore and sort of leader, Jonathan is the free spirit who can sort of fly, Melissa is the withdrawn psychic.

Enter Jessica Day, the new kid, also a Midnighter. The book basically goes into finding out her power.

This is very familiar territory for the mutant/psychic/supernatural kids series (other examples include LJ Smith's Dark Visions trilogy, and X-Men, and other things I can't think of). I do like how Westerfeld plays a bit with some of the stereotypes -- the fearless leader is more spooky than do-good, and the outcast figure is actually the friendliest one in the bunch. And the warrior figure's strengths are based on math. On the other hand, I'm still not all that interested in the "figure out the new kid's talent" story, and I wasn't particularly drawn to Jessica.

I'm actually most interested in Melissa and the potential spooky conspiracy with her psychic-ness and Rex's lore-ness, and because I am stubborn and contrary, I have decided she is my character and I shall pet her and call her George. Um. Yes. YA ensemble casts make me revert to middle school reading habits in which I automatically pick a favorite, usually completely contrary to the character that's supposed to be most appealing.

Anyhow, will be interested to see what happens, but not enough to buy the hardcover.

Links:
- rilina's review

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

You need to read the second one, especially if you like Melissa. (I do too.) It is MUCH MUCH better and has convinced me that I may need to buy the trilogy if the third one lives up to the progression.

[oyceter]

Oooo ok! Yay! I liked her because she was prickly and seemed to be maybe evil with many hidden motives. Also, the Pain of Psychic Powers totally gets me.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Dess was my favorite. She loves math! She builds cool weapons with names like Scintillating! But yeah, I thought Jessica was the least interesting of the kids.

[oyceter]

I loved the Scintillating weapon!

Jessica was indeed rather boring, and I do not have that much hope that she will grow more interesting. I find that I am almost always more interested in the side characters in mutant kids books than in the protagonist.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The other thing that improves in books two and three is that all five kids are given equal time in the story. By book two, Jessica really isn't the protagonist any more, and Rex and Melissa are emphasized.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Now I can't remember who's Melissa and who's Dessa. Part of the problem for me was that I really didn't give a damn about the characters. I mean, they were a vehicle for the story. They weren't much else.

The weaponized metal objects were cool. I will forebear on the numerology, except to say that I loathe numerology.

[oyceter]

Dess was the cool numerologist/weapons person and Melissa was the aloof psychic who was annoyed with everyone.

I could so see you being sporky with the numerology while I was reading it!

The characters aren't all that interesting; I think I just pick favorites out of habit -_-;;.

(btw, love your icon)