A review by bookishfoxes
Midnight Treasure by Piers Torday

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

3.25

When I first saw this book on Instagram, a post from the publisher that it was released, I immediately fell in love with the cover and ordered it. I mean, look at it?? It's gorgeous. It also screamed October at me, so when I got it I planned to read it around Halloween.

Over the weeks, I slowly hyped myself up. I couldn't wait to read this book. Aside from giving Halloween vibes, it sounded right up my alley. Vampires and werewolves - I need MORE werewolves book, a quest, a middle grade fantasy. Yep, I was super hyped.

The book started pretty slow. In my experience, middle grades are usually a bit faster, which is why I enjoy them so much. But I was hopeful it would be faster-paced soon. Sadly, this wasn't until near the ending. 

The world building was great and the writing is definitely high quality. It's obvious that this is written by an explosion writer. There were great details to many things and each character, no matter how small their role, came fo life. 

The story itself... it felt a little too slow and a bit long. It takes place over a short period of time, but it felt like it took forever to finish this book. 

I won't go into details about what the plottwists were, but they weren't predictable. Okay - some were at the beginning, but it felt like they were meant to be. The ending wasn't predictable either. However, it wasn't really surprising either? I didn't really feel anything about it. No shock or surprise. I think I just wasn't into the story enough.

This book wasn't, to my knowledge, promoted as the first in a series, so I was disappointed that the story wasn't finished on the last page, but it was announced the story would continue in a second book. While I was curious how it would end, I'm not sure I would pick up a second book of this.

I also think that maybe middle grade wasn't the right age group. Not that middle graders couldn't enjoy this, but I think the story would've had more potential if it was written to be an early YA novel. It already felt like one, if I'm honest.

Overall, I'm very sad I didn't like this. Given it's lack of ratings, I was prepared to promote this book and try to convince many people to give it a try.