A review by tobesmagobes
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

5.0

I adore Charlie Jane Anders so when I found out she had released a new book I pulled a muscle trying to get at it. I don’t like to read too much about a book before starting it and got very worried early on that this was a basic YA dystopian novel. Then I met the Gelet. This is essentially a novel about shared trauma and Jewish ancestral memory, set on a tidally locked planet that humans have colonized with dubious levels of success. All the main characters are ostensibly queer women, but there was much less of a focus on this than I would have liked. These women are fully developed and pretty much every other character is not, which may be intentional, but was also kind of disappointing as I have a poor memory (brain damage!) and had a hard time remembering who a lot of the less major players were. CJA has some of the best prose out there these days and I highlighted many passages. Reminiscent of Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis saga, and, to an extent, The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. Set up so a sequel is possible but not necessary. I think I’m giving this 4.5 stars, five for the purposes of this site and promoting it. I did not listen to any of the audiobook so I can’t review that aspect. Highly recommended, but All the Birds in the Sky is definitely superior.