OK, people and assorted beings, let’s do it.
I remember the Midnighters trilogy fondly, but I’ve read it a long time ago, back when I was actually buying those things called “paper books,” and my former self had a terrible taste in literature. Let’s see how the book holds up to my nostalgia. I do recall there being some world-building problems, so there certainly would be something to talk about, but I am curious if there is some more problematic stuff to be found and if the plot would look any good to me now.
1
8:11 A.M.
REX
That is the format of chapter titles: chapter number, time and chapter name in all caps. Chapters are also pretty short, the first one being only two scenes long, so I expect to do a few of them for each post.
The book is set in a small town of Bixby, Oklahoma. Small towns with supernatural shenanigans going on are good settings, but, as Beautiful Creatures show us, they can be portrayed hilariously bad, and the first chapter isn’t exactly encouraging in that regard.
We meet one of our protagonists, Rex, as the chapter title implies, and he immediately proceeds to whine about going back to school after summer holidays.
“Rex Greene walked slowly, wondering how the students jostling past him could
run into this place. His every step was a struggle, a fight against the
grating radiance of Bixby High, against being trapped here for another year. For
Rex summer vacation was a place to hide, and every year this day gave him the
sinking feeling of having just been discovered, caught, pinned like an escaping
prisoner in a searchlight.”
We are in for a great start. To be fair to him, it appears he’s being bullied as the moment he stops creeping close to a wall and steps into the crowd, he is pushed back by a boy called Timmy Hudson. Rex loses his glasses, which is met with laughter. We are informed that it’s not the first time something like that happened.
I actually have a soft spot for ostracized protagonists. A bullied kid is a more appealing protagonist for me than a well-adjusted one. I guess it’s the inherent conflict of the situation: bullying puts a constant pressure on the protagonist, creating tension concerning the character development. Or it could be lingering affection for Worm and Higanbana speaking.
(Also, let me bask for a moment at a realization I can actually quote
this book without first translating the text and typing it out. That’s
something you can’t appreciate properly until you read a book full of
empty banter you were too lazy to share with people and make them
despair like you did.)
Rex then meets a new girl who just transferred to this school, Jessica Day. It’s not apparent now, but damn, subtlety, thy name is YA fiction. Jessica hands him his glasses. Once he puts them on and can see again, he notices something weird: Jessica is out of focus. While everything else is clear, she looks blurry, like he doesn’t have his glasses on. When he takes them away, Jessica becomes clear. I approve of supernatural shenanigans starting right away. Far too many books spend first few chapters on the protagonists dicking around in a mundane setting and receiving vague clues about weird stuff. Yeah, I get it, establishing the characters, creating a contrast with things yet to come, yadda yadda, but that only works when the characters are deep and engaging, and the setting is colorful and immersive. And, well, let’s face it: it can’t really be said about a lot of YA fiction. Its main attraction doesn’t lie in complex characterization and exploration of profound themes. People read stuff like Darkest Powers to see cool magic being used in entertaining ways (they are going to be disappointed, but that’s another story). As such, getting to the point already is a welcome change of pace.
Rex awkwardly thanks Jessica, and she asks for directions to her classroom. Here the book establishes that the Bixby high school has classes in temporary trailers parked outside. Is it really a thing in small American towns? I am kinda curious.
Rex and Jessica part, and he engages in a bit of stalking:
“Rex knew that the rules of popularity wouldn’t allow him near her again, but
he hovered nearby, listening, using his invisibility. Not really invisible, of
course, but just as good. In his black shirt and jeans, with his dyed-black
hair, he could disappear into shadows and corners. There weren’t that many
students like Timmy Hudson at Bixby High. Most people were happy to ignore Rex
and his friends.
It didn’t take Rex long to find out a few things about Jessica Day.”
Pffft. Dude, you are wearing all black with dyed black hair. You should be sticking out like a roadkill in kindergarten. The only way for people to ignore you is if they are too embarrassed to acknowledge your existence.
Not sure what I think about stalking itself. On the one hand, stalking. On another, hey, he actually investigates the supernatural phenomenon right away instead of dismissing it as some weird optical illusion or using some other excuse popular among YA protagonists. Since he didn’t progress to the point of watching Jessica sleep or going through her trash, I’ll let it slide for now.
Of course, as we learn now, there is a reason for him to so readily notice the weirdness. At lunch he meets with his friends, Melissa and Dess. Melissa covers her gloved hands with her sleeves to prevent accidental contact with other people, wears headphones and doesn’t like crowds. She is silent for the duration of the scene, but we are informed that she listens, “but not with her ears.”
Dess isn’t described in much detail. When Rex starts talking about the new girl, she dismisses the topic as boring. Rex says Jessica isn’t boring, to which Dess replies:
“First day at Bixby and she’s already right in the middle of
the daylight crowd. Nothing interesting about that. She’s exactly the same as
the other hundred and eighty-seven people in here.”
Yeah, way to build up sympathy for you here, Dess. So, there are two ways to read it: either the three are ostracized by the rest of kids in school and developed this elitism as a defense mechanism (“We are not rejected! We reject them!”) or they are a bunch of snobs with a shared secret they think makes them special. We’ll see what it is.
Rex then says that Jessica is one of them because she has Focus. Incidentally, it’s actually a correct use of capitalization. There is already a word “focus” with defined meaning, so when you use the same word to mean something different, it’s a good idea to distinguish the two somehow. Capitalization serves this purpose. Still a bit pretentious, but, hey, where fantasy would be without all of those Important Words? Right, in a better place.
Dess dismiss Rex’s reasoning again, determined to earn my scorn, by saying, “Maybe she got
touched last night or something like that.”
OK, so if it was intended, good way to build up creepiness.
Rex insists the Focus on Jessica is permanent, which marks her as ONE OF US! ONE OF US! And Dess agrees to check her out if Jessica shares any classes with her.
2
2:38 P.M.
DESS
Despite the chapter title, the chapter is actually written from Jessica’s perspective. That’s going to get confusing fast if it keeps up.
Jessica is exhausted after her long first day at a new school. She dislikes being the new kid everyone gawks at, though she admits that they are friendly about that. She hates being late and always wears a watch set ten minutes late to avoid it. That fear was eating at her the whole day since the school is spread out at ground level, making it difficult to find anything. She is glad she managed to get to all her classes at time.
Her mother enrolled her into all of the advanced classes, which Jessica regards as flattering, but worrisome as the trigonometry book given to her promises lots of hard work.
And that’s how you build a sympathetic character: some understandable concerns combined with a bit of individuality and good spirits. So far Jessica looks pretty good compared to Rex and Dess. Let’s see if it holds up.
Also worth noting that Jessica’s family moved to Bixby due to her mother’s work. Her mother is an engineer working on plane designs. Her father couldn’t find work in Bixby yet. I don’t remember how her parents are actually characterized, but it’s nice to see a working mother and a father following her ambitions rather than the other way around.
But all good things shall come to an end. In this instance, the moment is ruined by Dess’ arrival. She is late for class, but the teacher smiles at her and greets her “as if she were some famous mathematician he’d
invited here to talk about how trigonometry could change your life.”
She greets him with, “Hey, Sanchez.”
We also get her description: “She
looked younger than the others in the class. She was dressed all in black,
wearing dark glasses and a lot of shiny metal necklaces.”
Yeah. Technically, the only thing she did wrong so far was getting late to class and apparently using her relationship with the teacher to get away with it. What she wears, what she thinks and what she says about other students to her friends is her own business. Still, she doesn’t exactly make it easy to sympathize with her. She comes across as arrogant and actively dismissing of other people, and it doesn’t appear like she suffers any ill effects from it so far. Perhaps that will change as we learn more about her, but my hopes aren’t exactly high.
She then sits next to Jessica. They go over the books the school gave them and record any existing damage so they won’t be responsible for it. Dess goes straight to the last pages and corrects wrong answers. Well, it was pretty obvious she’s good at math, though the description is kinda iffy: it appears as if she didn’t look at the problems first before correcting the solutions. Jessica buys it, though.
Dess also draws a quick sketch of the teacher in margins before recording it as preexisting damage. To be fair, I’m sure a lot of students did the same.
Dess then pesters Jessica with some probing questions, apparently wanting to know if she has the same affinity for math and finding her lacking. She then ominously says that Bixby gives you “funny dreams” and asks if Jessica had any, staring at her meaningfully. Jessica says she was too tired from the travel to dream, and Dess reminds silent for the rest of the class.
But keeps staring at Jessica because she likes to watch.
3
12:00 A.M.
THE SILENT STORM
This chapter actually starts after a time skip. Jessica’s first week at school is almost over, it’s currently a night before Friday.
She wakes up when the sound of rain suddenly stops all at once. She tries to go back to sleep, but can’t, especially since the room is slowly filled with bright blue light. When she gets up and looks out of the window, she sees sky full of diamonds.
Don’t worry, Jessica, it’s just the Dark Hour. Go find a gun and shoot your brains out, it’ll summon your spirit guardian.
“Weird dream,” she said aloud, and then wished she hadn’t. It didn’t seem
right saying that. Wondering if she were dreaming made her feel more… awake
somehow.
And this was already too real: no unexplained panic, no watching herself from
above, no feeling as if she were in a play and didn’t know her lines—just
Jessica Day sitting on her bed and being confused.”
Yeah, I agree. It’s easy to mistake dream for reality because your mind works weirdly when you are asleep, but mistaking reality for a dream requires either a crippling insomnia or lots of drugs.
Yet Jessica still thinks she’s dreaming. I praised the book earlier for getting to the point right away, and it seems I now have to retract that praise. I really hate when the protagonists do it, think they are in a dream. It just stalls the plot for little to no benefit, and it’s just so frustrating to read when I know that no, this shit is real, stop denying it and engage with the mystery already.
Ugh.
Anyway, Jessica walks outside, noting it’s exactly midnight according to the clock in the main room (her own shows 12:07), and then discovers that diamonds in the air are actually raindrops frozen in place. As she touches them, they melt on her hand, becoming water once again.
What follows is a pretty scene of her playing under the frozen rain and feeling awe at looking around and seeing the world basked in blue light reflected from raindrops.
It’s a beautiful setting, but it does pose some questions: if everything is frozen, wouldn’t it create problems with breathing for her? Wouldn’t it mean that only a tiny layer of air touching her skin is unfrozen and the rest is immovable? Same problem with vision, technically, if she were to stand still in one place, but the blue light is not natural, so I can let it slide. And what about sound? She can hear her voice as normal, which implies that vibrations caused by her speaking carry on through the frozen air. As I recall, objects tossed by people here don’t lose their momentum once they are out of reach, either, so we can assume they carry the unfreezing power with them. But wouldn’t that lead to the world being unfrozen just by virtue of Jessica being present? She unfreezes the air around her, which, regaining its kinetic energy, would push at the air around, making it move, too, and the effect would carry on in all directions. I guess it’s possible that objects affected by unfreezed objects don’t unfreeze themselves but merely can be given new impulse, but even in this case we should see some cloud of unfreeze around Jessica. Plus it would probably affect objects’ trajectories and aerodynamic properties anyway.
I guess I shouldn’t complain too much because the phenomenon does make for a cool setting and, eh, magic, but it still kinda bothers me.
Anyway, Jessica wakes up in the morning, pondering the meaning of her “dream” and deciding it was probably about how her life in Bixby can be fine despite her anxieties. Then she notices her clothes are soaked wet. Big surprise.
Tune in next time to find out if she actually believes it’s not a dream now. (Spoiler: she doesn’t. Damn, way to spend all credit she’s got from me for being sympathetic.)