![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book Review
Mar. 16th, 2021 08:41 amThe City in the Middle of the Night
by Charlie Jane Anders
This sci-fi novel is set on January, a tidally locked planet in which one side is permanently dark and very cold while the other is light and hot. The descendants of long-ago colonizers live in the temperate twilight zone between the two halves. Out in the middle of the night half live the Gelet, telepathic aliens with whom the humans have only had fleeting and violent contact. The story centers on Sophie,a college student in the extremely regimented city of Xiosphant. When covering for her friend Bianca's petty crime, Sophie is caught and exiled into the dark. She survives with the help of one of the Gelet, sending her on a trajectory of transformation for herself and the human inhabitants of January.
The City in the Middle of the Night had so much potential, but never fully realized it. The setting is fascinating but a little underdeveloped - I would have enjoyed more of the backstory of how the humans ended up on January and more about the Gelet and how their society worked. The characters are also a little underdeveloped. Sophie and Mouth have a lot of interesting aspects, but they are never explored in any real depth. Plus, Sophie's relationship with Bianca is pretty unhealthy, and I spent a lot of the book hoping that's how the reader is meant to see it. The plot also never seemed to coalesce into a real arc or whole. Despite plenty of interesting and exciting events, the story always seemed a little fragmented and haphazard. Themes about change, overcoming trauma, and living in and with a harsh environment are hinted at but not really explored. It's as if the book was edited a little too zealously, made so lean as to lose substance.
by Charlie Jane Anders
This sci-fi novel is set on January, a tidally locked planet in which one side is permanently dark and very cold while the other is light and hot. The descendants of long-ago colonizers live in the temperate twilight zone between the two halves. Out in the middle of the night half live the Gelet, telepathic aliens with whom the humans have only had fleeting and violent contact. The story centers on Sophie,a college student in the extremely regimented city of Xiosphant. When covering for her friend Bianca's petty crime, Sophie is caught and exiled into the dark. She survives with the help of one of the Gelet, sending her on a trajectory of transformation for herself and the human inhabitants of January.
The City in the Middle of the Night had so much potential, but never fully realized it. The setting is fascinating but a little underdeveloped - I would have enjoyed more of the backstory of how the humans ended up on January and more about the Gelet and how their society worked. The characters are also a little underdeveloped. Sophie and Mouth have a lot of interesting aspects, but they are never explored in any real depth. Plus, Sophie's relationship with Bianca is pretty unhealthy, and I spent a lot of the book hoping that's how the reader is meant to see it. The plot also never seemed to coalesce into a real arc or whole. Despite plenty of interesting and exciting events, the story always seemed a little fragmented and haphazard. Themes about change, overcoming trauma, and living in and with a harsh environment are hinted at but not really explored. It's as if the book was edited a little too zealously, made so lean as to lose substance.
