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A review by cross_a16
Midnight Is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book was REALLY tough to rate. I landed on a 3.5.
This is my first Ashley Winstead novel and I’d like to try others, because I enjoy her writing style(besides the overuse of the word “thick”). I enjoyed the Louisiana setting, and I’m always interested in a corrupt church cult. And I think readers loved or hated the Twilight references, and I appreciated them. I, too, was a HUGE Twilight fan in my early teens, and the teenage fantasy of a supernatural being sweeping you off your feet and loving you forever is relatable.
However, this book was entirely too much. Too many characters, too much going on, too much time hopping. I am fully in support of a dual timeline(dual as in TWO, max) but this book went from present day to when she was 17 back to present day back to when she was 20 then back to present day then back to when she was 18 and I absolutely could not keep the series of events in chronological order straight in my mind. Nor could I keep the characters straight because there were too many of them, and the author went back and forth between using just their first names, just their last names, and their first and last names together.
The ending was…wild. I would have preferred SLIGHTLY more closure, but I think I actually kind of liked the theatrical chaos of it all.
Overall, if you asked me if I liked this book, I cannot answer. If you ask me if I recommend this book…I can’t answer that either. 🤣
This is my first Ashley Winstead novel and I’d like to try others, because I enjoy her writing style(besides the overuse of the word “thick”). I enjoyed the Louisiana setting, and I’m always interested in a corrupt church cult. And I think readers loved or hated the Twilight references, and I appreciated them. I, too, was a HUGE Twilight fan in my early teens, and the teenage fantasy of a supernatural being sweeping you off your feet and loving you forever is relatable.
However, this book was entirely too much. Too many characters, too much going on, too much time hopping. I am fully in support of a dual timeline(dual as in TWO, max) but this book went from present day to when she was 17 back to present day back to when she was 20 then back to present day then back to when she was 18 and I absolutely could not keep the series of events in chronological order straight in my mind. Nor could I keep the characters straight because there were too many of them, and the author went back and forth between using just their first names, just their last names, and their first and last names together.
The ending was…wild. I would have preferred SLIGHTLY more closure, but I think I actually kind of liked the theatrical chaos of it all.
Overall, if you asked me if I liked this book, I cannot answer. If you ask me if I recommend this book…I can’t answer that either. 🤣