I absolutely loved it!!!

This book has an interesting premise - there is a time between midnight and 12:01 that certain people can experience for an hour. The rest of the world(?), or at least the town, is frozen - cars, people, animals etc. Electronics don't work. But there is a downside - the dark creatures that are on the prowl during this time. Each Midnighter (as they call themselves) has a power. The new girl to the town discovers this magic (or I guess I should say Secret) hour and then is met by the other Midnighters. SPOILER:::::::She doesn't discover her power until the last pages.

If you've read the first paragraph and are interested, stop reading and go check it out. Don't let the rest of this review stop you from giving it a chance.

I like Scott Westerfeld, his [b:Uglies|24770|Uglies (Uglies, #1)|Scott Westerfeld|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1296159834s/24770.jpg|2895388] series, and the [b:Leviathan|6050678|Leviathan (Leviathan, #1)|Scott Westerfeld|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275694232s/6050678.jpg|6226342] series are really good and you should go read those right now. This book left me feeling a bit cheated. Nothing really big happens, there isn't enough suspense to keep me turning the pages (though I turned the pages anyway obviously).

Jessica our protagonist has just moved to small town Bixby from Chicago with her family. In a matter of days she discovers she's not like the other kids in town, somethings happened to her since she's moved, for instance she's woken one night by a strange light and the rain that was falling down only a few minutes before is frozen, suspended in mid air as if by magic. Only it's not magic. Every night at midnight, the world and it's inhabitents freeze, and only Jessica and a few other kids in town are awake in this secret hour. They call themselves the Midnighters, and they each have strange and bizare powers that they can use in the secret hour. Sounds fab right? but no, Darklings are trying to kill Jessica, and they need to finds out why before it's too late.

Okay, it may just be me, but how freaking cool would it be to have a secret hour that only you and a few choice others knew about. Imagine the things you could do, the pranks you could pull, all the things you could get away with. I can imagine it would be a serious pain to have to worry about someone trying to kill you, especially when you had some weird power that you could so use in the secret hour. This was most definitely my favourite part of the book, the fact that this secret hour is something that *could* exist and we would never know about it. I know it doesn't really and its all make believe, but wheres the proof? I honestly spent the few days after reading this convinced that Westerfeld knew about some secret hour and was using it as an idea for a book. Now thats a mark of exceptional writing, because it made me believe in the make believe.

The characters are well developed, none of them fall flat on the page, each one has a unique and differing voice. True, I didn't get to know them as much as I could've done, but I am putting this down to the fact that this was the first in the series, and that more development and character connection would come over the course of the series. The dialogue is witty and zings from character to character. The pace is kept at a steady momentum, not running away with itself or slowing to a snails pace. All in all this was a well written and enjoyable start to the Midnighters series.

Decent read but nothing spectacular.

It was really cool in concept but it was poorly done. It was a slow build up, that took until the very end to lead to anything. The side story romance came out of no where, the build up for it was just barely there. It could have been such a better book

Eh. I love this author but this story didn't really do it for me. I'm going to read the next one in the series and see if it gets better.

I remember reading this trilogy back in middle school and loving it, but it doesn't really hold up now reading as an adult. I felt like the stakes were low so I didn't realize we were working up to the climax at the end so I got there and was just like "oh okay" and felt a little underwhelmed. I still look back on this series fondly so I think I'll re-read the other two books as well.

What if, for one hour a day, the entire world was frozen in motion - except for you? Oh, and a whole slew of terrifying creatures?? This is what Jessica Day finds out soon after moving to Bixby, Oklahoma. What she thought were terrifyingly real "dreams" make her suddenly very eager to become friends with the other kids at her new school that seem a little...off.

It's a slap-bang premise, I have to admit. To have this space in time where all bets are off, where an ancient and frea-kay set of rules suddenly apply and you get to be a part of it - that's just one great piece of imagination. I think Westerfeld nearly completely pulls it off. His characters are intense - although Jessica seems a bit "blah" compared to everyone else, but I can see how he's just getting her set-up to become who she truly is in the next two books.

My only complaint? He gets cheesy at the climax, darn him! It really was a great ride to the climax and while I believed it and I can see the potential, the dialogue cheesed out on me. I'm going to forgive it, though, because it really did keep my attention until I finished. I think I need to find out how this all turns out.

I am a huge fan of Westerfeld's work and have read multiple books of his. I feel like the plot in this one was string enough to start, and support, a series, but not all of the characters were. I found Dess and Rex to be forgettable and flat, while I was always wanting to know / see more of Melissa and Jonathan. However, even with that, I found myself seeing them more as their powers than as people. Overall, not a bad start and I'm interested to see where the plot develops from here, but I'm not terribly invested in the characters.