Reviews

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

fedak's review against another edition

4.0

A really great piece of world building with a YA lesbian romance novel layered on top of it. Loved the setting, the alien race, the backstory on the protagonists. The dialog and most of the interactions between the characters strayed into tedious "teen angst drama".

It also ended abruptly without tying up the narrative and the pacing in the middle dragged- Probably could have benefitted from having 50 pages edited out of the middle and the addition of a more comprehensive conclusion.

rsmo666's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

sophiaonthefarm's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Loveable characters? No

1.0

g_newton98's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

2.75

smesnake's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

merbearmer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

erintowner's review against another edition

2.0

This book didn't live up to the hype for me. The writing was fine, there was no ending, and the world building was sub-par.

crimsoncor's review against another edition

5.0

In general, I don't comparisons in the form of "this author is the ___ of their generation". And even in this case, I don't think you can say that Anders is a modern Le Guin as Andrew Sean Green did in his cover blurb. But I do think it is very fair to say that this novel really does feel like a novel Le Guin could have written if she were of this time. Which is to say it is a beautiful and gutting novel about losing yourself to truly find yourself and also about the utter terribleness of humans even when fighting for good things. And mostly it just a story about broken queer women trying to fix a broken world (and maybe themselves) and I loved ever page of it.

borrowedandbacklist's review against another edition

This book started out promising, especially the world building and the “crocodiles”, but the middle is dragging and I don’t care about the characters at all.

dizzar's review against another edition

adventurous sad tense medium-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

3.75