Elliott, Zetta: A Wish After Midnight
A Wish After Midnight (2008)
Written by: Zetta Elliott
Genre: YA/Time Travel/Historical Fiction
Pages: 274 (Trade Paperback)
I first heard about this book at Justine Larbalestier's website. It's one of many YA spec fic novels featuring and/or written by people of color that deserves far more than the attention it's getting. I plunked it on the list and let it languish there for a little (so many books to read, so little time), and finally picked it up when it 1) got an updated, shiny cover and 2) got a fantastic review from Ana and Thea at The Book Smugglers. And after reading Catherynne M. Valente's Palimpsest, I needed something that would be a breeze to get through but still be quality writing. When my eyes landed on my recently acquired A Wish After Midnight, I knew I'd found the perfect follow up.
The premise: ganked from Amazon.com: Genna is a fifteen-year-old girl who wants out of her tough Brooklyn neighborhood. But she gets more than she bargained for when a wish gone awry transports her back in time. Facing the perilous realities of Civil War-era Brooklyn, Genna must use all her wits to survive. In the tradition of Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, A Wish After Midnight is the affecting and inspiring tale of a fearless young woman’s fight to hold on to her individuality and her humanity in two different worlds.
Review style: I want to get one thing out of the way: there will be spoilers. There's things I really want to discuss that require my spoiling the book, as I want opinions on why my concerns are or are not important. But aside from those world-building concerns, the review will focus on what this book does best: examine race relations in two different time periods (to the best of my ability, of course) as well as whether or not this book is Kindred, Jr., or its own bird, or both. So yes, SPOILERS, and to avoid those, just skip to the "My Rating" section at the bottom of the review. Everyone else, onward!
Let's get the nitpicks and questions out of the way first.
I'm a detail person. Not the kind of detail person where I need to know every detail about every meal a character eats, or where I need to know every detail about the character's state of dress, but when it comes to plot and storytelling, I like details. People say the devil's in the details, and I've heard something similar said about pull off a successful con: details, details, details. Sometimes lack of detail gives the reader the freedom to imagine whatever they'd like and therefore enhances the story, and sometimes lack of detail limits the reader's ability to fully suspend disbelief and enjoy the book. The problem is that one book's lack of detail can fall into both camps.
Here's the thing, and this is where my comparison to Kindred comes a little early: with Kindred, we knew exactly what triggered the flashes back and forth in time. The rules were simple, and so it added a certain layer of tension to the story. We never knew for sure when Dana would be yanked back in time, but we always knew what it would take to move her forward, and that forced the reader to wonder just how much hell Dana would go through before time, or whatever mechanism was moving her back and forth, had decided she'd had enough and yank her back home.
We don't have such hard and fast rules in this case. Oh, we know it's based on a wish (the title of the book makes that much obvious), but that alone leaves gaping holes. What was so special about Genna's wish that particular night? Was it a certain night or a certain time? What was her wish anyway? We never learn what her wishes were the moments she's pulled back and forth in time, and I think if it were just Genna effected, I'd be okay with that level of coyness, but it's not just Genna. It's Judah as well.
And this was where my brain was jumping up and down and demanding answers. Did they go back in time at the same moment? How did her wish pull him back as well? Or did he have to do something different? If they went back at the same time, why didn't they wake up together in the same place? If they went back at the same time, why didn't they go home at the same time?
My questions lead me to believe that somehow, Judah was pulled back after Genna, perhaps wishing for her return. And that would explain why he was stuck in the past while she moved home to the future. But if she's dying in his arms, shouldn't his wish be just as fervent as hers in terms of a way home? And if it's a life-threatening or dangerous moment that yanks them back and forth in time, what exactly happened to Genna and Judah in present day that yanked them back to "safety"?
Another question that puzzled me: Genna may have been yanked back body and soul, much like Dana in Kindred, but yet the body she inhabits clearly had a life and story before it became Genna. So what happened to that girl? How does this magic work that pulls Genna and Judah back in time and allows them to keep their appearances yet inhabiting bodies that clearly had a history before they showed up? This, too, had my brain howling for answers.
It's a matter of how far I can suspend my disbelief. It's not to say I didn't enjoy the story (I did, and I'll talk more about that in a minute), but I wasn't as fully immersed as I'd like to be in it. But I need to point out that these issues shouldn't be seen as deal-breakers by any means. Over at The Book Smugglers, Ana and Thea seemed to relish the very lack of detail that had my brain hopping mad, so in this case, it's really a reader thing. It's gonna depend on you. I'm not the kind of reader/viewer who has to have answers to EVERY SINGLE QUESTION a story poses (how can I be: I was a Lost fan for YEARS and I loved the finale!), but for whatever reason, my brain drew a line at this book and said, "Nope, sorry, answers are required here."
And maybe we can lay the blame for that line on Octavia E. Butler's Kindred, because let's face it: it's a pretty similar premise. A black woman of modern time is yanked back to the Civil War Era and experiences the kind of racism and prejudice her ancestors faced first hand, which gives said heroine a new way of looking at things in the modern world. The difference between the books is that one is written for adults and one written for young adults, and one heroine is an adult and the other heroine is a teenager. But the major difference, and the most important one for my two cents, is the fact that Dana from Kindred is pulled back to the Civil War South, whereas Genna (hell, even their names are similar, but that may be a nod to Butler more than anything) ended up in the North and therefore had a very different experience. And for my two cents, it was a rather surprising one.
This is where my lack of American History cred gives me trouble. Or maybe it just happened to be the school system I was raised in, but when we studied the Civil War, you could sum up the lesson with caveman speech:
South. Slaves. BAD.
North. No slaves. GOOD.
Honestly, I know the Civil War was more complicated than that, but I always viewed the North as some shining example of moral rightness, despite the fact that I've since learned that Lincoln used the slavery issues as a political platform: he didn't care about freeing the slaves so much as he cared about keeping the Nation in tact and highlighting the treatment of slaves was a way to rally his people.*** But still, despite this knowledge, I have to admit I was shell-shocked by just how badly blacks were treated up North, let alone the existence of RIOTS back then during the war.
In hindsight, now that I know this sort of thing happened, it makes sense. But the mind, it still boggles. And this is where the book SHINES, because it blasted away my notions about race relations in both the past AND the present. Genna is a fantastic narrator too: she's surrounded by extremist views but she has to use her own experiences to make up her mind about what she believes in regards to both blacks and whites. That's powerful stuff. Because while she's a woman of color, she doesn't automatically support her race because she's a part of them. She's very critical of the blacks in her neighborhood, and she's got some critical viewpoints on some of the whites she encounters too. That, by no means, makes her an unlikable character: we see her interact with a variety of people: family, friends, and strangers, and she treats them accordingly. Like I said, she's a fantastic narrator. I was riveted by her experiences in modern day because of her very viewpoint. It takes a while for anything "fantastic" to happen in terms of time travel, but I'm so engrossed that I'm almost disappointed when it DOES happen, because I want to know more about Genna life in the NOW.
And I strongly suspect that there's a sequel in the works. I haven't heard that there IS, mind you, but the book ends on several question marks: how things go with Genna's mom (I can live without that answer); the fact that Judah didn't come back with her (I want resolution); the fact that she comes home THE DAY BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, which is a major turning point in US history, and hell, she's in freakin' Brooklyn. I remember living through 9/11 in freaking VA; I can't imagine how raw it would've been to live through it in NYC and its surrounding areas.
But most important, I want to know what Genna's supposed to come away with. One would thing that with all the time spent in modern day before the time travel, there'd be a question raised: how is she going to handle her future? What did the past TEACH her about how to handle her life, her future, her relations with both black and white people? Sure, she makes a promise to Judah, but that promise felt too much a product of the past and not a life lesson for the future, and I want to know how this experience has changed Genna for the better or worse. I suspect we'd see that once 9/11 hits, which is the biggest reason I want a sequel. And to wring some answers out of Judah, who I'm not entirely sold on. He's a well-crafted character in that he's got some good and some flaws, but as far as seeing him as Genna's One True Love? Not so much.
Technically speaking, I had a few moments where the prose pulled me right out of the story.
Page 91, where we learn what a paddle really does and what it looks like. I get that the author doesn't want us to slide on by with whatever our personal vision of a paddle is, but the definition was so clumsy and academic I was yanked right out of the story, especially since it read like an "As you know, Bob…" Again, I get why we NEEDED the actual definition, but I do wish the author had found a better way of handling it.
Page 97: you know how when the topic of diversity in spec fic comes up, people seem to say that if race isn't mentioned, then the character is assumed white? That's true. And that made my reading of Genna's transition into the past rather difficult, because once she made it to the orphanage, she'd meet people she'd describe by everything BUT their skin color, which left me wondering: well, what's the color? I wanted to assume white, but given the context, I didn't think that'd be a correct assumption, and I ended up being right in that. I'll admit I may have missed out on a description in my haste (but I wanted to find out what would happen next!), but as of this read, we don't know the skin color of "the girl with too-bright eyes" because Genna doesn't tell us.
That said, because Genna is black, it'd make sense if she only pointed out the skin color of WHITE people, and unlike white people reading fiction by white authors and assuming white characters, Genna as a young black woman would notice black people but not feel the need to point out that black people were black, because it's her community, you know?
Or am I just speaking ridiculous gibberish and not making sense? I can still blame the pain meds!
Moving on . . . wait, I've got nothing left. Let's wrap up, shall we?
*** = Let's not debate this too much either. As soon as I didn't have to take history any more, I got the hell out of that subject, so that sentence is based on what others have told me who actually TOOK college-level history. If you're looking for a debate, I'm definitely the WRONG person to have one with.
My Rating
Must Have: Despite my brain hopping around demanding certain answers, I understand that my desire for knowledge shouldn't handicap this book in any way, because really, it all depends on the reader, and I can't make a blanket formula that'll fit every reader as to whether or not you'll want the same answers I did. We're all different, after all. But I loved Genna as a narrator. Her POV kept me riveted, especially in present day Brooklyn, and I want so much for there to be a sequel it's not even funny. There's so much this book has to offer, so much this book has to show you, that it'd be a shame to let this one slip by. It's a fantastic book too for a debut novel (I think it's a debut, anyway, and if not, it's still fantastic), and readers will also enjoy the nods/similarities to Octavia E. Butler's Kindred (similar premise but VERY different story) and shades of Justine Larbalestier's Liar, as we have similar narrators (except that Genna is not a liar) in both voice, POV, and stature. This is just a delightful read, and I'm so glad I finally got my hands on this. And Amazon has it RIDICULOUSLY cheap right now, so when I say it won't hurt your wallet, believe me. There's a reason I made this book my bonus read for the September Book Clubbers, and you should want to read this to find out why. Really, you should. I can't wait for more from this author.
Edit: The author discusses my review here and explains that yes, there WILL be a sequel. Woot!
Cover Commentary: I'll be honest, I SO MUCH MORE PREFER the cover of the latest release. It's visually more interesting for me to look at, and it features more than simply one of the main characters of the book. It's a gorgeous cover, and while this may sound shallow, one of the reasons I put off this book initially was because I just wasn't all that into the original cover, which is seen behind the cut. I've since had a chance to see it in much greater detail (click on the image itself or view it by itself and you should see it in much higher resolution), and I appreciate the art a lot more. I still don't care for it as a book cover, but it's far more interesting when seen up close and I have a great appreciation for it now than I did before.
Next up: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins