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A review by halfbloodcity
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski
4.0
I’m not someone who usually writes reviews, I tend to only star a book, and that’s because it’s actually hard for me to put my thoughts into coherent enough sentences. I get too absorbed in the book to actually be able to string words together.
This book however, was such a conflicting read that I felt I actually needed to write a review. It was also my first Marie Rutkoski’s read/book.
In the first few chapters I felt really bored, I was thinking this would be a book I would definitely not enjoy. And suddenly the story would pick up and I’d be like “nice, it’s growing interesting” and then it’d suddenly break. The whole book felt like a rollercoaster of “urgh, I’m bored” and “wow, got interesting”.
There was also the writing. There’s something in the writing style that I’m not a fan off, but I cannot pinpoint exactly what it is. However, at the same time I really liked how the world and the scenery was described. Weird right? How can you appreciate and dislike a writing style at the same time?
In the end I actually quite enjoyed “discovering the world at the same time as Nirrin”, as we see her go through what she thought to be the norm and “how things are” and find out how things actually came to be. However, in the beginning I did feel like I was missing a big part of the context to this world.
Am not sure if I want to give this book 3 or 4 stars, so I’m going to settle with the 3.5 stars. I am really curious about what’s going to happen next, because that end was a bit …
Beware the spoilers
Raven: I was actually fooled for a bit in the beginning, but ended up realising quite quickly how much of a sh*tty person she is. Specially after finding out she’s actually Nirrin’s aunt, but was using her because when she was born her mum (aka Raven’s sister) died, as if it was Nirrin’s fault. And the way she blackmails her to do what she wants and has, as well, a really abusive relationship with her, where she’ll hit first and come bearing gifts after. Which actually leads us to Aden who keeps claiming to love Nirrin and only caring about her wellbeing but in reality just wants her to do the things he thinks are right, but is also lying to her and hiding the truth about Raven from her. Also, how he quickly turns against Nirrin when she says she does not want to be with him.
Sid:She was actually the first character that really made me interested in the story, probably because she’s technically really mysterious, but has you start seeing more of her character it kinda starts being easy to see where the truth and the lies are, how she keeps trying to hide who she really is and in the end still has to leave. I do hope we’ll see more of her in the next book. I did really like the dynamic between her and Nirrin when they started to get to know each other a bit more. Oh, and page 268, that kinda hit me in the face so quick I honestly jumped in my seat.
Possibly weirdly enough, one of my favorite characters whas Morah even though we don’t have much on her and off her in the book. I hope we get to see more of her in the story to come.
This book however, was such a conflicting read that I felt I actually needed to write a review. It was also my first Marie Rutkoski’s read/book.
In the first few chapters I felt really bored, I was thinking this would be a book I would definitely not enjoy. And suddenly the story would pick up and I’d be like “nice, it’s growing interesting” and then it’d suddenly break. The whole book felt like a rollercoaster of “urgh, I’m bored” and “wow, got interesting”.
There was also the writing. There’s something in the writing style that I’m not a fan off, but I cannot pinpoint exactly what it is. However, at the same time I really liked how the world and the scenery was described. Weird right? How can you appreciate and dislike a writing style at the same time?
In the end I actually quite enjoyed “discovering the world at the same time as Nirrin”, as we see her go through what she thought to be the norm and “how things are” and find out how things actually came to be. However, in the beginning I did feel like I was missing a big part of the context to this world.
Am not sure if I want to give this book 3 or 4 stars, so I’m going to settle with the 3.5 stars. I am really curious about what’s going to happen next, because that end was a bit …
Beware the spoilers
Spoiler
Nirrin: She was a complicated character for me. I think it’s hard not to like her but at the same time she can be so annoyingly childish and “blind”. We do see her grow a bit as the book develops and it becomes obvious that she is “ignorant” to the ways of the world because everyone worked to make it like that. It’s actually heartwarming to see how she goes from a person that does and says everything she thinks/knows they want to hear to someone that goes after what she wants, even if it takes so long and she is in denial for most of the book. I spent quite a long time thinking about her “powers” and what they meant/what she could actually do and I was about 50% right. I ended up thinking she’d be the reincarnation of a God (obviously I did not know what had happened to them at the time) to find out that she actually was a half-God. I’m also really curious about her changes in the end, how she gave away her “heart” to give everyone the knowledge they supposedly needed to get a better/different life and lost herself in the process, becoming a soulless person. Am really curious to see how that will change in the next book, if it’ll.Raven: I was actually fooled for a bit in the beginning, but ended up realising quite quickly how much of a sh*tty person she is. Specially after finding out she’s actually Nirrin’s aunt, but was using her because when she was born her mum (aka Raven’s sister) died, as if it was Nirrin’s fault. And the way she blackmails her to do what she wants and has, as well, a really abusive relationship with her, where she’ll hit first and come bearing gifts after. Which actually leads us to Aden who keeps claiming to love Nirrin and only caring about her wellbeing but in reality just wants her to do the things he thinks are right, but is also lying to her and hiding the truth about Raven from her. Also, how he quickly turns against Nirrin when she says she does not want to be with him.
Sid:She was actually the first character that really made me interested in the story, probably because she’s technically really mysterious, but has you start seeing more of her character it kinda starts being easy to see where the truth and the lies are, how she keeps trying to hide who she really is and in the end still has to leave. I do hope we’ll see more of her in the next book. I did really like the dynamic between her and Nirrin when they started to get to know each other a bit more. Oh, and page 268, that kinda hit me in the face so quick I honestly jumped in my seat.
Possibly weirdly enough, one of my favorite characters whas Morah even though we don’t have much on her and off her in the book. I hope we get to see more of her in the story to come.