Apr 18

Apr 18 The City in the Middle of the Night

Author: Charlie Jane Anders
Publisher: Tor Books
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

Would you give up everything to change the world?

Humanity clings to life on January — a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other.

Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization--but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.

Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives — with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice.

Burdened with a dangerous, painful secret, Sophie and her ragtag group of exiles face the ultimate challenge — and they are running out of time.

Welcome to the City in the Middle of the Night.

TL;DR Review

While The City in the Middle of the Night didn’t grab me as much as I’d hoped it would, I definitely thought it was really creative and well written.

For you if: You like soft sci-fi tinged with environmentalism and political upheaval.

Full Review

“You might mistake understanding for forgiveness, but if you did, then the unforgiven wrong would catch you off guard, like a cramp, just as you reached for generosity.”

The City in the Middle of the Night was my last read of the 2020 Hugo Award list of nominees. And while I definitely thought it was creative and well written, I’m sad to say that it was a little bit of a letdown for me — it just didn’t grab me the way I’d hoped or expected it to. BUT that could definitely be a me thing and my jittery headspace the last few weeks and not the book — so don’t let me be the reason you don’t read this! (I also absolutely love Charline Jane Anders and her other work that I’ve read, and I’m definitely going to keep reading her going forward.)

The book alternates between two women: Sophie and Mouth (yes, she’s called Mouth — there are a lot of strangely named things in this book). They live in one of two main cities on a planet called January, in the sliver of habitable space between scorching sunlight and unforgiving, freezing night. Early in the book, Sophie takes the fall for something dumb her roommate, Bianca (with whom she is falling in love) did, and the police make an example of her, which brings her into contact with the night and its inhabitants. Mouth, on the other hand, is uncouth and scrappy, and she’s also the only surviving member of a society of traveling nomads, and she grapples with her identity, her memories, and where she fits.

All in all, this book has a lot going for it. The relationship between Sophie and Bianca is compelling and hard to look away from, and Mouth’s character arc was a lot more of a journey than I’d expected. There are themes of environmentalism and totalitarianism and more. It just didn’t necessarily keep me hooked, and it took me nine days to finish (whereas I usually average more like three or four).

Anyway, TL;DR: I liked this okay but didn’t love it, but that could be a me thing, and there is plenty here to love.