Book Review - By Midnight

Afternoon all, I thought I'd surprise everyone by actually doing what I said I would and reviewing By Midnight!

Title: By Midnight

Author: Mia James

Date: 2/8/2010 AM

Source: Bought

Description: April Dunne is not impressed. She's had to move from Edinburgh to Highgate, London, with her parents. She's left her friends - and her entire life - behind. She has to start at a new school and, worst of all, now she's stuck in a creepy old dump of a house which doesn't even have proper mobile phone reception. Ravenwood, her new school, is a prestigious academy for gifted (financially or academically) students - and the only place her parents could find her a place, in the middle of term, in the middle of London, on incredibly short notice. So she's stuck with the super-rich, and the super-smart . . . and trying to fit in is when the rest of the students seem to be more glamorous, smarter, or more talented than she is, is more than tough. It's intimidating and isolating, even when she finds a friend in the conspiracy-theorist Caro Jackson - and perhaps finds something more than friendship in the gorgeous, mysterious Gabriel Swift. (Taken from Goodreads)

My Review: I'll admit that when I first heard about this I thought it sounded pretty bloody cool, a UK-based vampire story was something that we were rather lacking within the genre and I hoped that it would prove itself to be a worthy attempt. But alas overall it was a fairly lacklustre result, while some of the characters were interesting and the general concept involving the mystery of the Highgate Vampire from the late 1800's was nicely worked in. The action was pretty fast-paced when it kicked off in the last third of the book but things were a tad slow getting there.

One thing that occurred to me only after I'd finished reading was the fact that I had no clue as to what any of the characters looked like - apart from mentions that Bianca and her brother Benjamin were blond I don't remember seeing *any* specific descriptions of people, oh wait there may have been something about April having black hair... dang I really can't remember.  



I think my favourite character was probably Caro for being slightly nutty and unique. Her paranoid, conspiracy theorist attitude made for fun scenes and she was a pretty good friend to April even when she was being all moody and isolating herself (for very good reasons I'll grant you). I'd be interested to see what role Caro plays in the sequel as she's a pretty cool gal.


Overall I'll say that By Midnight was an alright read and could improve as the series continues after this shaky start. The concept is interesting and if the vampy action was upped a bit it would be less of an angsty read. I noticed April spend a prodigious amount of time worrying about her lack of a boyfriend, experience, prettiness etc. which got a little irksome after a while and I wouldn't mind seeing less of it in the next one. 


So while aspects of the book are fun I wouldn't really recommend rushing out to buy it, maybe wait a while until the paperback comes out and see what the reviews are like for sequel when it appears in case things don't get better.


My Rating: 3.5 Stars out of 5


Ok so I planned on posting this on Friday but Wednesday is not *too* bad right? Sorry for not doing a Teaser Tuesday yesterday I was out for most of the day and just felt a bit blah. I'm gonna try and do some more reviews soon cos I've read some pretty good books.


LadyV