A review by ghostbird
Abarat: Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker

3.0

There were lots of parts I really liked, but I feel like the story could have been better written and I felt rather disappointed with the later part of the book. I felt like it set up a lot of cool stuff that the plot could have centered around, but then it just decided to ignore all of that and make something totally different be the focus. I mean, there was Some foreshadowing to the things that happened, but not much and it didn't feel very cohesive.

Also, who shoehorns in a love-at-first-sight romantic subplot 2/3rds of the way through the third book in the series with a character that's completely new?? Maybe there will be some explanation in later books (if they come) that will make me go, "ooooh I see!" (which happened toward the end of the second book). But idk, I just didn't buy it and had to fight not to roll my eyes every time they interacted.

DISCLAIMER: The first two books in this series were super formative to me in middle school, so I may have some biases. Having recently reread the previous two books, I do think they had parts that could've been done better too. Ultimately I didn't like the first book as much as I'd remembered, but I was just as into the second book as I used to be.