The Girl at Midnight Review

THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT
Series: The Girl at Midnight (Book One)
Genre: YA, Fantasy 
Release Date: April 25th 2015

Book Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: arc, Goodreads 
Review: 4/5 *Full Review Below.

Blurb:

For readers of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones and Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, The Girl at Midnight is the story of a modern girl caught in an ancient war.

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, but 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.

For readers of ‘The Mortal Instruments’ and ‘Shadow and Bone?!’ Needless to say the minute I read this it could not get on my ‘to-read’ pile quick enough. The Mortal Instruments has to be one of my favourite series of all time and the Shadow and Bone series completely blew my mind last year.

 But The Girl at Midnight? Hmm.. Phenomenal! 

There is a reason why this was one of the most anticipated books of 2015! This book will read different to everybody regardless of what they have read in the past. I found no direct comparisons between TMI and SAB series other than a few similarities and the term ‘firebird’ but nothing that overshadowed the overall uniqueness of characters such as the people of Avicen and Drakharin. This may be because its been a while since reading those books but I still feel this book really pulls you in leaving little room to think of anything else. It can be easy to draw comparisons but only if you are really looking for them for instance a ‘firedrake’ is mentioned in The Girl At Midnight and I admit my inner nerd came out thinking of Smaug from The Hobbit but this in no way means that the books are alike, however this book does get extra cool points when I stumbled upon this little beauty of a quote..

  “One does not simply walk into Mordor,”

There are more little one-liners like this, which made the book so enjoyable. This book is amazing and written so beautifully that it was hard to put it down so in the end I just didn’t, much to the disappointment of my endless university deadlines.. oops! The author described some truly beautiful places such as Paris and New York but my favourite by far was Kyoto in Japan:

  “Temples sat beside glass skyscrapers, while certain streets, like the one she currently stood on in the Pontocho district, were so well preserved that they were like portals back in time. A hundred years had passed, and still the teahouse to which the map had pointed stood, exactly where Echo had expected it to be.”

The characters in this book will have you hooked; Echo the heroine is a thief with an impressive vocabulary and she’s a human living in this magical world. I loved her from the get go and her snarky attitude was amazing! There is a love triangle in this story if it can actually be called that but for those who are more against them don’t let this put you off. I for one don’t mind more than one love interest as long as it is written well and this is written superbly, once reading the book you can tell it’s not a typical love triangle as in other YA books. BUT Caius? Even the name is swoon-worthy; I completely fell in love with him. There is a gay couple in this book which I loved and reminded me back to Alec & Magnus, it’s about bloody time we had some more of this!

The Girl at Midnight is Grey’s debut novel, which is extremely impressive and I will definitely buying the second book in June 2016 even though the wait will be excruciating. It really does deserve all the praise and without a doubt will be popular once it’s released and it’s sure to increase the sales of Whoopie Pie’s.. You will have a major sweet tooth upon reading. This book will take pride and place on my bookshelf among some of my favourites which is basically anything written by Sarah J Maas and The Winner’s Curse series. So just read and enjoy! ♥