The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey Series: The Girl at Midnight #1
Published by Delacorte on April 28, 2015
Genres: Fantasy, Fantasy YA, Young Adult
Pages: 357
Format: ARC
Source: a fellow blogger (thanks for sharing!)
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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.
THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT is a pretty special debut from Melissa Grey, friends. It’s got that great combination of fantasy elements superimposed over the modern world, and I loved the way we got to see two different species interacting. Plus dragons. Or more accurately, Drakharin. But dragons. As much as I enjoyed reading THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT–and I did, quite a bit–there was one thing in particular that gave me just a little pause, although it’s not necessarily a bad thing. I was mostly captivated by the historical interactions between the Avicen and Drakharin, and the way the whole thing with the Firebird played out. I’ll definitely be picking up book 2 in this series to see how everything plays out.
THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT is the story of Echo, a human girl who is taken in by a race of bird-like creatures known as the Avicen when she is a small child. The Avicen live underground in New York City, and wield magical powers of different varieties. Their mortal enemies are the Drakharin, dragon-humans who are known for their violence and infighting. When Echo–who has become a pretty successful thief–and the Avicen are once again drawn into battle with the Drakharin, she embarks on a dangerous journey with the Drakharin leader, Caius, to discover an ancient creature known as the Firebird, who can supposedly stop all this fighting between the two groups. Of course, there are friends to support them both, enemies to reveal them both, twists and turns about the past and the present, and a star-crossed romance.
Right off the bat, I’m going to get into the one thing that bothered me about THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT, and I use “bother” to mean “couldn’t help myself from comparing to something else and it fell a little short.” It reminded me–on more than one occasion, and sometimes fairly strongly–of Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. It had a lot of similar elements: two species of magical/fantastical creatures, long at war with one another. A young girl who steals things and uses the magic of her adoptive family to travel the world collecting artifacts. The love-hate romance. Probably the biggest similarity is a spoiler for both series, so I won’t mention it, but I noticed these kinds of things pretty early on and so I always had the thought in the back of my mind while I was reading. I say that this is the thing that bothered me not because it made me like the story any less–not the case. I enjoyed reading THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT, and there were ways that this book was certainly very different from Laini Taylor’s series. I say that it bothered me because, in comparison–which I couldn’t keep myself from doing once I first thought of it–I think Laini Taylor executed these things a little better. Tiny bummer, guys.
That being said, I thought Melissa Grey did a great job with the mythology of the Avicen and Drakharin. I love reading about mythologies of fantastical cultures or worlds. It’s super fascinating to me. The Avicen living underground was kind of awesome, given that they are birds and are probably not associated with anything LESS than dirt, much less UNDER dirt. I also loved that different species of birds are represented. I would LOOVE to see some fanart or basically any kind of art illustrating them because they’re so cool sounding. I also enjoyed the Drakharin culture for the same reasons, as well as the danger and drama of their infighting. It made for a ton of drama for Caius as their leader, and for Echo and Caius together. Big fan.
Something else I was a big fan of in THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT? Echo. First of all, she lives in a library. DUH JELLY. And she has this excellent fascination with obscure words. But she was also brave and brash and funny, and she took being (kind of mostly) accepted by the Avicen people seriously. She’s very loyal to them. Echo has a ton of personality and was really likeable. Caius was pretty stoic and tormented. His past haunts him, all while he tries to fend off the machinations and aspirations of his vicious sister for his place as leader. Their relationship is rocky for sure, but also satisfying. There is another guy–Echo’s Avicen boyfriend–but I never really took him that seriously because even though Echo likes him a lot and he seems like a stand-up guy, the thing with Caius is just BIGGER.
The secondary characters in THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT also make this story awesome. Caius’s best friend and guard, Dorian, gets all the fist pumps, as does Echo’s best friend, Ivy. When Echo, Caius, and a bunch of their friends and associates go off in search of the Firebird, things really amp up. I loved the story behind the Firebird and how it circles back to Echo and Caius, and I really wasn’t expecting the twist. I always like when twists surprise me, especially when they set up things for the continuation of the story so well.
Friends, I’d definitely recommend THE GIRL AT MIDNIGHT. I liked the drama and the world-building and the way the end expanded everything for our characters and what they know. I’m invested in so many relationships and felt all kinds of feelings. It’s definitely a very solid debut, guys.
I’ve been really curious about this one. I just love the cover. It is weird, though, when a book reminds you so much of another. I haven’t read Daughter of Smoke and Bone either.
I totally agree that there are some familiar elements (though I am woefully behind in the DoSaB series) to other things out there, but man alive did I love Echo and that + the world building kept me hooked!
I am such a huge fan of Daughter of Smoke and Bone! I do not know if I can look past the similarities, especially if Taylor executed them better. I am still on the fence about reading this one. Great review!