Book Review: Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson

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Midnight at the Electric
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Historical
Released: June 17 2017
Review Source: HarperTeen

Divided by time. Ignited by a spark.

Kansas, 2065. Adri has secured a slot as a Colonist—one of the lucky few handpicked to live on Mars. But weeks before launch, she discovers the journal of a girl who lived in her house over a hundred years ago, and is immediately drawn into the mystery surrounding her fate. While Adri knows she must focus on the mission ahead, she becomes captivated by a life that’s been lost in time…and how it might be inextricably tied to her own.

Oklahoma, 1934. Amidst the fear and uncertainty of the Dust Bowl, Catherine fantasizes about her family’s farmhand, and longs for the immortality promised by a professor at a traveling show called the Electric. But as her family’s situation becomes more dire—and the suffocating dust threatens her sister’s life—Catherine must find the courage to sacrifice everything she loves in order to save the one person she loves most.

England, 1919. In the recovery following the First World War, Lenore struggles with her grief for her brother, a fallen British soldier, and plans to sail to America in pursuit of a childhood friend. But even if she makes it that far, will her friend be the person she remembers, and the one who can bring her back to herself?

While their stories spans thousands of miles and multiple generations, Lenore, Catherine, and Adri’s fates are entwined.

Midnight at the Electric follows three different girls who are all connected in some way. They each come from a different time period; 1919, 1934 and 2065. Each dealing with their own types of dramatic situations they each learn from one another whether they know it or not.

This book had so much potential for me to love it. It hooked me, that's for sure, but it never gave me that feeling of having completely loved the story. I don't feel like I got my answers - which leaves me frustrated.

It was a little bit difficult to keep up with. The three girls are in different periods and for a chunk of the book you're with each one. So we start in 2065. When you feel like you haven't really connected with the girl there you get thrown into 1934. It was - for some odd reason - very easy for me to connect to this girl. So I had no issues with her story. But then I get thrown into 1919. When things get a bit confusing then we get thrown back to 2065 and don't get answers for a while. I felt like this was too jumbled and wish that it had a more flowing story.

I've heard so much good things about this book that I really don't want to change anyone's mind about reading it. The intrigue that Anderson brings to the story will have you hooked. And maybe there are people out there who are able to follow a story that throws you around a bit. But for me, this was one that was difficult for me to follow.

Book Review: The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

The Vanishing Season
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy | Paranormal
Released: July 1st 2014
Review Source: HarperTeen

Girls started vanishing in the fall, and now winter's come to lay a white sheet over the horror. Door County, it seems, is swallowing the young, right into its very dirt. From beneath the house on Water Street, I've watched the danger swell.

The residents know me as the noises in the house at night, the creaking on the stairs. I'm the reflection behind them in the glass, the feeling of fear in the cellar. I'm tied—it seems—to this house, this street, this town.

I'm tied to Maggie and Pauline, though I don't know why. I think it's because death is coming for one of them, or both.

All I know is that the present and the past are piling up, and I am here to dig.I am looking for the things that are buried.

From bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson comes a friendship story bound in snow and starlight, a haunting mystery of love, betrayal, redemption, and the moments that we leave behind.

The Vanishing Season was one of those stories that slowly crept up on me. At first it was a little slow, but then all of a sudden I was captivated by the writing and the slow and eerie story. What I expected to turn into a ghost story turned into something more.

The Vanishing Season is about Maggie whose family has to up root their lives from the busy life of Chicago to the quiet, no service, serine town of Door County, Wisconsin. Maggie then meets a girl her age, her neighbor, Pauline who then introduces her to Liam. The three of them become close and hang out all winter. Since Maggie has moved to Door County young girls are abducted and murdered. All while we are witnessing Maggie’s new life and evolutions we have this whisper, a ghost, throughout the story, telling us her view upon the three kids.

This was something I was excited to read, but at first I couldn’t quite get into it, but after I got use to the voice of the story I was completely attached. I enjoyed the eeriness the story had from the very beginning, you knew something wasn’t quite right, but you just couldn’t put your finger on it, or maybe you could and I was just late to the game. Maggie was homeschooled so the only people she was familiar with in Door County were her family, her new friends Pauline and Liam, and Elsa the Emporium owner where Maggie had worked at. Pauline was the obvious beautiful girl who knew nothing of the such but didn’t fall into all the pretty girl stereotypes. Liam the beautiful outdoorsman who has been misjudged his entire life because of his dad’s radical ways. The relationships that are built in this story were true and beautiful; you experience love, friendship, loss, and finding yourself.

If you’re looking for a ghost, or paranormal story you won’t find it here, but you will find a beautiful and raw story about teens coming of age. Maggie is a type of loner, but she learns a lot when she decides to not be alone and sometimes it feels good and sometimes it hurts like hell.

Book Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Released: July 3rd 2012
Review Source: Harper TEEN
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

(2.5 Trees)

As much as I adore the story of Peter Pan, this version of the story between Peter and Tiger Lily did not capture me the way I’d hoped it would. One main thing, that you will either love or hate, is that Tinkerbell is the narrator. I felt she was too complex a character at times and her love for Peter Pan kind of shadowed the story in some parts. She was just to cut and dry and even annoying for me.

The story itself wasn’t what I expected probably because it was so slow to get started, that it took me forever to read. I started understanding the point of the story more towards the middle of the book. I assume that it’s primarily meant to be a love story, but through the eyes of a faerie it just didn’t do it for me. I might have enjoyed it more if it had been told in the eyes of Tiger Lily herself. I would’ve preferred her rendition of everything she was feeling for Peter, rather than Tink’s version of Tiger Lily’s feelings.

I will say that the one thing that made me rate this book .5 trees more would be the end. It was so tragic and SAD it literally left my heart hurting. I wish the author had put some of the story’s heart-wrenching passion into the rest of the book and hadn’t waited until the very last bit of it. If you’re a fan of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, Tink and Neverland, you might just enjoy this book but I would take it with a grain of salt. As was the case for me, it might not meet your expectations.