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A review by jang
Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson
5.0
Jodi Lynn Anderson aka my new fave writer aka THE QUEEN OF SILENTLY IMPACTFUL, GUT-WRENCHING WORDS.
I first fell in love with JLA when I read her book Tiger Lily. She just has a way with words. Her gift for dialogues is astounding; it enlightens and really jolts awake sudden realizations you never knew you had in you. I mean, she'll make you realize things way before you realize you need some "realizing." Hahaha that doesn't make sense but that's how I feel!
I thought I was never gonna like this. The beginning struck me as a full-on dystopian sci-fi YA, which I never really had a patience for. Then came the backstories and those letters and journal entries, and I soon found myself a bawling mess.
By the way, I've always been a sucker for journal entry types of narrative. When the main character Adri started tracing back her history and family's roots through mails and journal entries, I was won over.
The book covered a lot of emotional aspects that gave a good break from all that sci-fi and industrial talk. It tackled grief, loss, heartbrokenness, yearning, confusion, self-realization, love, falling in love, and all those other emotions most young adults feel.
I especially loved those chapters that involve Lenore and James' unlikely "us but not really us" love story. I connected with it so much because aside from the realistic connection they had, the characters were also very layered and nuanced.
But my most favorite thing about the book would have to be the tortoise named Galapagos. OHMYGOD. The tortoise wasn't just a useless, filler for the plot to carry on; she actually played an essential part to the lives of all the characters mentioned in the book.
When they started letting go of Galapagos in Galapagos Island (which was really the best thing to do), I was crying as if I actually lost a loved one because 1. the scene was so beautifully and vividly told I felt like I was actually in that scene, and 2. turtles and tortoises are the fight of my life. It wasn't just a weird fondness, I actually really care and live for turtles. That scene was so beautiful I had to read it over and over and cry over it over and over.
Mid-read I realized that Galapagos -- being a tortoise that could live for hundreds of years and the only living witness to what Adri's family had gone through -- must've been a metaphor for time. Like a life clock that always sees everything in passing.
Midnight at the Electric is definitely my kind of dystopian sci-fi YA. It's punchy and modern yet is still emotionally realized and raw. And Jodi Lynn Anderson deserves all the awards just for existing.
I first fell in love with JLA when I read her book Tiger Lily. She just has a way with words. Her gift for dialogues is astounding; it enlightens and really jolts awake sudden realizations you never knew you had in you. I mean, she'll make you realize things way before you realize you need some "realizing." Hahaha that doesn't make sense but that's how I feel!
I thought I was never gonna like this. The beginning struck me as a full-on dystopian sci-fi YA, which I never really had a patience for. Then came the backstories and those letters and journal entries, and I soon found myself a bawling mess.
By the way, I've always been a sucker for journal entry types of narrative. When the main character Adri started tracing back her history and family's roots through mails and journal entries, I was won over.
The book covered a lot of emotional aspects that gave a good break from all that sci-fi and industrial talk. It tackled grief, loss, heartbrokenness, yearning, confusion, self-realization, love, falling in love, and all those other emotions most young adults feel.
I especially loved those chapters that involve Lenore and James' unlikely "us but not really us" love story. I connected with it so much because aside from the realistic connection they had, the characters were also very layered and nuanced.
But my most favorite thing about the book would have to be the tortoise named Galapagos. OHMYGOD. The tortoise wasn't just a useless, filler for the plot to carry on; she actually played an essential part to the lives of all the characters mentioned in the book.
When they started letting go of Galapagos in Galapagos Island (which was really the best thing to do), I was crying as if I actually lost a loved one because 1. the scene was so beautifully and vividly told I felt like I was actually in that scene, and 2. turtles and tortoises are the fight of my life. It wasn't just a weird fondness, I actually really care and live for turtles. That scene was so beautiful I had to read it over and over and cry over it over and over.
Mid-read I realized that Galapagos -- being a tortoise that could live for hundreds of years and the only living witness to what Adri's family had gone through -- must've been a metaphor for time. Like a life clock that always sees everything in passing.
Midnight at the Electric is definitely my kind of dystopian sci-fi YA. It's punchy and modern yet is still emotionally realized and raw. And Jodi Lynn Anderson deserves all the awards just for existing.