Review: Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Midnight at the Electric

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Publication Date: June 13^th 2017

Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Publisher

Find This Book: Midnight at the Electric

Rating: 5/5

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

I’d been in a bit of a reading slump the last year or so because of academics taking up most of my free time and me wanting to hang out with friends and watch movies with the little left over time that I had. This book is definitely a cure for reading slumps! I’ve been reading it over the past couple days and every time I set it down I was itching to pick it back up again. I had my doubts at first as to how this book was going to have well developed characters, a plot, and three POV’s while still being as short as it is. All I can say is that it must be magic.

The novel starts of with Adri’s POV. She’s from 2065 and is going to MARS. Holy cow! I thought that future Jodi painted for me cool, frightening, and realistic. There’s some political/social commentary about the generations before her ruining the planet and the waterline rising aka the destruction of the coast. That is something I can get behind in my YA. Heck Yes to the woke AF authors who are using their writing platform to subliminally send messages. We also have Katherine in the Dust Bowl as a POV and Lenore in England during The Great War. Adri is piecing together their past lives while also working out her own. How their story lines mingle and interconnect was so creative, it honestly felt like a historical fiction novel rather than 100% made up plot. The journal and letters just felt so realistic even though we were only reading one side of a conversation. This book was everything I needed and more.

This book was so wholesome and refreshing. Seriously- it was like a breath of fresh air. When I received this book from Ebony over at HarperTeen I thought I recognized the author name. Turns out I was given a previous work of hers (Peaches) by an elementary school teacher of mine. She gets sent free books to potentially add to her classroom and gave me a pile when I last volunteered with her for the Kids Literary Quiz. Anyway, I hadn’t gotten around to that pile of books yet and knew nothing about Jodi Lynn Anderson’s writing style going in to this novel. I was pleasantly surprised! This book struck an emotional chord with me. I can’t say I’ve experienced anything like what these various women are going through, but while reading so many lines just rang true for me. I can’t remember the last time a book had made me feel this way.

Some beautiful gems from the last end of the book when I finally started writing this down (out of context, SPOILER FREE, quotes):

“So many lights you’d think we were living in a constellation”

“I think the rest of the world is not as cold and lonely a place as you think. At least I have to hope.”

“She thought of all the things she’d forgotten to be scared of.”

That last one really rang true for me. How many times have I signed up for things and panicked at the last possible second? All of the possible ways that something can go wrong suddenly fly into your head, even when you thought you were sure about something. My first time on an airplane, driving my car, heck even meeting teachers and classmates for the first time! So the message I got from the book was that you’re as strong as you need to be, and you’ll be brave enough to get through what you’re facing. If none of this makes you want to go read this book, I don’t know what else to say to convince you to be honest. I think over my 20 years on earth I can count on one hand how many books have made me cry. This wasn’t one of them, but it was pretty dang close. I almost cried over a tortoise. A TORTOISE. This is a must-read.