Review Detail

Aliens, robot armor suits, explosions, a psychic little girl, a bounty hunter, a near-magic tech wizard, a romance and a dog. What more are you looking for in a sci-fi book?! I mean, seriously!

So, yeah, I love this book. It's got all of the sorts of action and aliens that a sci-fi girl could want plus really good characters. The story follows Holt, a bounty hunter who's on the run, Mira, who can create fantastical tools using items that seem to have magical properties, and Zoey, a little girl with memory loss who Holt rescues from a crashed alien ship who is far more than she first appears. They live in on a version of Earth that has been conquered by a mysterious alien race that they refer to as the Assembly; Assembly aliens seem to be light or energy based creatures, and I hope we get more info about them in later books. The aliens have basically captured all of the adults, and almost all children are infected with something that is called the Tone, which seems to be a mind-control virus that becomes worse as they grow up; when they reach adulthood, they fall under the influence of the Tone and walk themselves to the nearest alien home base. Harsh. Those who are immune to the Tone are called Heedless, and Holt just happens to be one of these. I'm sort of in love with Holt. I mean, really, a lonely, sarcastic, surly bounty hunter with a dark past whose main goal is survival, plus he has a dog, plus he's very capable, plus he's witty? Yes. Oh, yes, he is good, and just a very enjoyable character besides his inherent awesomeness; he screws up, makes mistakes and has goofy moments. Mira is kick butt and very clever, and I think she'd be an awesome best friend for anyone. She and Holt have a great love-hate-admiration-annoyance thing going on; it was fantastic. Max and Zoey are great sidekicks, and I hope we discover more about Zoey in the next books.

I guess if I had any problems with this book, it was that they spent a lot of time running away from the Assembly...I mean, a lot. Which was sort of necessary, but maybe some of the running bits could be cut out or shortened. Besides that, I really liked the book, everything from the characters to the setting to the plot.

I was very satisfied with the ending of this book. With most YA books, I'm a little shriveled twist of discontent emotions, often quite upset at the current predicament of characters that I've come to enjoy. With Midnight City, I was happy with the ending, though it's not exactly happy and it definitely left me wanting more. It's hard to describe, but I just was really pleased with the ending that Barton provided. I think anyone who is a bit of a sci-fi nut might want to give this book a try!

Thank you, NetGalley.com and St. Martin's Press, for letting me read the galley of this book!