Reviews with content warning for Violence - The City in the Middle of the Night

i read a lot of books in this lane -- ambitious 2010s/2020s sci-fi chock full of big ideas about our societies and ourselves -- and this one does the rare trick of growing on you as it goes, introducing new ideas and plot developments fluidly and never losing the shock of the new it embodies. pairs well with Seeing Like a State and, later, Crimes of the Future

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beccaand's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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anniereads221's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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kat_mayerovitch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Gosh, what an interesting book! I'll admit, the bits about Bianca and Sophie, and Mouth and everyone else didn't grab me as much as I would have liked, probably because their relationship remains so static throughout. It was the parts with the Gelet that made me keep reading all the way to the uncertain ending.

That said: even though it didn't make for the most satisfying reading experience, I appreciate what Anders was doing with Sophie/Bianca and Mouth/Alyssa, and in a kind of parallel way, humans/January itself. Getting stuck in the same relationship patterns, repeating them again and again even though you know better and ought to be growing out of them in some kind of narratively satisfying way ... that's incredibly real, and also underexplored in science fiction, where themes of progress (and retrogress, with eventual triumph) tend to prevail.

Having read Anders in both forms, I think I love her short stories better than her novels. (No shame in that, I feel the same way about quite a few authors!) But I'm glad I read this book, even so.

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puttingwingsonwords's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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mar's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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deedireads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

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.

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