Review: The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

From Goodreads: Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she's ever known. Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she's fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it's time to act. Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, but if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it's how to hunt down what she wants ... and how to take it. But some jobs aren't as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.

My Rating: 2.5 hearts 

Thoughts on the Novel: The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey was a book that I was really looking forward to reading. Unfortunately, while I found it entertaining due to its fast pace, the plot reminded me far too much of that of Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone. The characters in The Girl at Midnight could have also been more fleshed out.

The protagonist of The Girl at Midnight, Echo, is a human girl who ran away from home, and is adopted by the Avicen. A skilled thief, Echo – whose appearance is never really described so you can’t picture her – is tasked to find proof that a) the mythical firebird from Avicen lore exists, and b) its location. Echo isn’t the only looking for the firebird though; Caius, a Drakharin, is too. Whichever species finds the firebird first gets to permanently decide how to end the war between the Avicen and the Drakharin.

At first, even though Echo and Caius's star-crossed attraction reminded me a bit of the attraction between Karou and Akiva, especially with Echo running around as an errand girl for another species, I wasn't too concerned. There were differences in plot; and at the time, I was more worried about the potential development of a love triangle because Echo already had an Avicen boyfriend. The ending, however, appears to be completely ripped off from Daughter of Smoke and Bone!

The Girl of Midnight resembles Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments (a series I haven't read, but have read lots of reviews and spoilers for) in some aspects as well. Although I wasn’t invested in the attraction between Echo and Caius, I was interested in a romance potentially developing between Dorian, Caius’ guard who harbours unrequited feelings for Caius, and Jasper, an Avicen. Doesn’t that sound a lot like Alec and Magnus though?

Another issue that I had with The Girl at Midnight was that the characters’ backstories could have been better developed. We’re given pieces of information about their past, but this information never appears important; it’s almost as if the characters’ pasts should just be glossed over. For example, we know that the main reason Caius wants the firebird is so that he can end the war through peaceful means rather than through violence because he was once in love with an Avicen who was then burned to death by Caius' twin sister, Tanith. What remains unclear though is how a Dragon Prince managed to meet an Avicen not just once, but multiple times in secret, and how Tanith found out about their relationship.

I’m not sure if I’ll read the sequel to The Girl at Midnight, but if I do, I hope the sequel will be more original and have better characterization. 

The Girl at Midnight will be released on April 28, 2015 by Delacorte Press.

Comments About the Cover: It’s gorgeous, and was one of the reasons why I became tempted to read The Girl at Midnight. 

In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Random House) for free via NetGalley.