The book is finished, so let’s talk about it as a whole.

The Secret Hour was an enjoyable ride, though the book is far from flawless. The biggest issue is probably the lack of a strong theme. There is the theme of Midnighters being outcasts finding escape in their secret world, but not much was actually done with it. The plot revolves around magical stuff, leaving their interactions with the daylight world little room to breathe. There is also the theme of progress being awesome and helping us fight wilderness and protect civilization, but the actual methods of doing so are so divorced from reality that the meaning behind them becomes muddled. Dess is not a scientist finding new ways to deal with darklings. She is an occultist using arcane rules to fight monsters. And Jessica relies on her inherent powers rather than finding a way to start a fire in the secret hour. The scene of her abandoning her attempts to start a fire and going for a flashlight was neat in the context, though.As such, the book remains a fun romp through original setting, but there is little deeper meaning to be found.

The plot, too, is pretty basic. It’s basically just Jessica arriving to a new town, finding out its secret, meeting the local Occult Underground and finding out her powers. There is little in the way of twists and turns, it’s more an introduction to an adventure than a proper adventure itself. A big part of it, I think, is the lack of a proper villain. Darklings, for all the characters speak about their intellect, act as a force of nature reacting to Jessica’s presence rather than a mastermind plotting her downfall. And while wild animals can be dangerous and scary, in the end they are just animals. They don’t make sophisticated plans, they don’t have complex motivations or much of a personality.

In a lot of stories the plot is shaped by villains’ actions, and that is true for this book, too. Unfortunately, with villains so simple as darklings, that results in a very simple plot.

So, if neither themes nor plot is particularly good, what is appealing about this book? Firstly, world-building. For all I harp about its inconsistencies, the frozen world hidden in a secret hour that comes each day at midnight is pretty cool. It’s imaginative and, while not entirely original as my constant references to Persona and DRYH would imply, is rare to see compared to other types of urban fantasy. The talents of Midnighters are pretty neat, too, and, more importantly, fit the theme of the secret hour (maybe except Melissa, since she just has telepathy, but even then the secret hour has affected it, making her daylight life a living hell and offering certain… opportunities during midnight).

In short, the setting is just cool, and for all its flaws, it was fun exploring it with the characters and figuring out how everything works.

Another strong point of the book is the characters. In short, Midnighters are fucked up and have some deep issues with each other, making for a fun toxic dynamic. I just wish it would have been explored more since as it is, the dynamic takes a backseat to the plot of figuring out Jessica’s power, during which the Midnighters mostly work together and put aside their tensions. Like, I wouldn’t mind reading a story about Jonathan splitting off from the main party and Dess trying and failing to mediate. As it is, the dynamic is mostly implied rather than shown, but even then it’s pretty intriguing.

In fact, let’s talk about the characters in depth to see how much potential they have and how much of it was realized.

Jessica
She is more or less your standard everyman protagonist. New to the town and its mysteries, she requires a lot of exposition, allowing readers to learn with her. As many everyman protagonists, she is kinda bland, but not irritably so. She is notable for having a good relationship with her family and trying to be a good sister to a bratty young kid.

She is also supposed to be stuck between normal world and the secret hour, being comfortable in the former but having to deal with the latter, but again, not much was actually done with it since the book doesn’t really focus on everyday life much, which is probably one of its biggest flaws. There is a potential for some fun conflicts between two sides of her life, and it’s a shame the book doesn’t go there.Part of it is the plot: with Jessica being in constant danger, she has little choice but to stick with Midnighters. It would be more fun, I think, to give her some room to just explore stuff and establish relationships before shit hits the fan, giving her opportunities to create some tension between her and, say, Melissa, who is antagonistic enough for it.

As it is, she remains a fine but not particularly interesting protagonist. And, as I said before, I don’t care much about her talent. It does serve as a catalyst for conflict, but there are other ways for it than unlimited burning power.

Rex
The most well-adjusted and level Midnighter, Rex isn’t interesting by himself, but he does create good dynamic with other characters. He is the one who discovered Jessica being one of them and insisted on including her into the team, he seems to be the reason why Melissa works with the group and he has an entertaining tension with Jonathan, with Dess getting between them.

In other words, he is the linchpin of the group dynamic, being involved to a lesser or greater extent with every one of them.

He apparently has a flaw of wanting to control the flow of information and the group’s actions as a whole, though it could have been explored in more detail. As it is, it’s mostly here to explain why Jonathan broke up with the group and for the scene of Melissa brainwashing Jessica’s parents. Not exactly bad, but more could be done with it.

There are also mentions of his father being a psycho and of his mistakes with Melissa when they were younger, but those are hooks for future books.

Oh, and he delivers exposition.

Dess
She had a rough start on this blog due to raising some red flags for me, but as we learned more about her, she became one of the most interesting characters in the book. Being isolated and left to deal with the secret hour for far longer than any other Midnighter, she retreated into her own little world of numbers and equations, which hampered her ability to interact with other people. She is smart and knows it, which makes her cocky and somewhat arrogant. Ultimately, however, she does care about people close to her and is willing to stand up for them and risk her life.

She is also the resident occultist, with her talent being the closest thing to a magic system this setting has to offer. While, again, there are various inconsistencies with world-building, reflected in her power, it is pretty entertaining to watch her performing her craft.

She also has various interesting quirks fleshing out her character, like counting in foreign languages and having that mechanical ballerina she tweaked to be as creepy as a mechanical ballerina has any right to be.

Jonathan
Love interest. Reckless, easygoing and not particularly smart when it comes to dangers of the secret hour, partly due to always being able to just outrun them. He is the character who needs fleshing out more than any other due to his rather disastrous introduction. Apparently, he feels trapped during the normal time, feeling alive only in the secret hour when gravity doesn’t have a hold on him, and that is something I would like being explored in more detail.

As it is, the most interesting thing about him is the rift between him and the rest of the group, which gives us an alternative look on Rex and can potentially lead to the conflict between him and Jessica.

Melissa
She started out as a telepath with semi-uncontrollable power whose life sucks because of it. Then she was slowly revealed to be goddamn terrifying. Due to the constant pressure of foreign thoughts invading her mind, she could never relax during normal time and only felt at ease during the secret hour. That led to her alienation from the rest of humanity and a feeling of resentment towards them. As such, she sees nothing wrong with adjusting the thoughts of ordinary people for her own convenience. And while she mostly does it for a good cause, she is positively gleeful about her craft, treating people more as toys than living beings.

She is also the likely cause of Dess’ isolation and might or might not have brainwashed Rex to always be by her side. That was likely unintentional, however: for many years she didn’t even believe Rex, whom she sensed during the secret hour, was real, and after finally gathering courage to find him, she didn’t want to risk ruining the first good thing that came from her power by introducing new elements to the equation. The brainwashing I am speaking about is more a consequence of two isolated people finding each other and becoming each other lifeline than a deliberate move on her part.

In other words, Melissa is a portrayal of a kid with a lot of power, a lot of pressure on her shoulders and little to no restrictions on what she is allowed to do. It’s no wonder that she turned the way she is, though that doesn’t make her any less terrifying.

She is an interesting character to read about and a great source of conflict, though I wish her antagonism towards Jessica would result in something more than mere suggestion of leaving her alone that was quickly dismissed.

Constanza
Technically a secondary character with little screen time, but, eh, I like her. Constanza is interesting in that she falls into the “mean popular girl” archetype prevalent in YA fiction involving high school, but she isn’t actually mean. She isn’t flawless, she did giggle over Dess being weird, but for the most part she is pretty likable. She welcomes Jessica to her group of friends, helps her to deal with nasty rumors about her, invites her to a party and decks a creep in his face for her. Basically, she’s pretty awesome and is rather unusual for the genre.

Again, it’s a shame not much was done about Jessica being stuck between two worlds since Constanza would make a good contrast to Midnighters. She doesn’t have any special powers, she is frozen during the secret hour, and yet she’s pretty cool, and Jessica has fun hanging out with her.

So, that’s the cast. As you can see, while the book could have done better exploring its characters, what we have is still reasonably well-done and has plenty of potential for next books.

In conclusion, while The Secret Hour is far from a masterpiece, it’s worth reading if you like low-key urban fantasy and search for something relatively original.

Now, what’s next. Well, I can always do the next book in the Midnighters trilogy, but other suggestions about urban fantasy would be welcome. I’ll take a break for now, since some stuff interferes with my posting, and will resume readthrough somewhere next week.