Book (not) Bingo #20
Just After Midnight by Catherine Ryan Hyde
No longer tolerating her husband’s borderline abuse, Faith escapes to her parents’ California beach house to plan her next move. She never dreamed her new chapter would involve befriending Sarah, a fourteen-year-old on the run from her father and reeling from her mother’s sudden and suspicious death.
While Sarah’s grandmother scrambles to get custody, Faith is charged with spiriting the girl away on a journey that will restore her hope: Sarah implores Faith to take her to Falkner’s Midnight Sun, the prized black mare that her father sold out from under her. Sarah shares an unbreakable bond with Midnight and can’t bear to be apart from her. Throughout the sweltering summer, as they follow Midnight from show to show, Sarah comes to terms with what she witnessed on the terrible night her mother died.
But the journey is far from over. Faith must learn the value of trusting her instincts-and realize that the key to her future, and Sarah’s, is in her hands.
A few days ago, I was looking through my Kindle folder of unread free & cheap books, and I came across this one. I was puzzled, because I was certain I’d read the book. So why was it in the “unread” folder? Then, when I opened it and read a few pages, it wasn’t at all familiar. After a little more research, I discovered I’d read another book by the same author titled The Language of Hoofbeats. Even though the plots of the two books are completely different, both feature a traumatized teen girl and a black horse, and I was confusing the two. Since every book I’ve read by the author has been well worth reading, and this one was already on my Kindle, I went ahead and read it.
Catherine Ryan Hyde, as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, is a skilled writer. She does a particularly good job of creating believable, compelling, engaging characters. In that respect, I wasn’t disappointed in Just After Midnight. I also enjoy books featuring animals, and I owned horses for most of my adult life, so that aspect of the book appealed to me. Coincidentally, this is the second book I’ve read recently that featured a dressage horse and dressage horse shows, and I enjoyed learning more about dressage.
However, while I like Catherine Ryan Hyde’s work in general, I have two criticisms of this book. The first is the … organization, for want of a better word. The story takes place over one summer. But, for some reason, the author chose to start telling the story in the middle. There were several chapters set in mid-summer, then the author took us back to the beginning of the summer, and then it skipped forward to the end of the summer. In my opinion, this made the plot difficult to follow. I didn’t fully grasp what was happening (and, more importantly, why things were happening) when I first started reading (the middle of the story). I later had to go back and reread several mid-summer passages after I finally understood their significance. Even having finished the book, I can’t see any practical reason for not having started at the beginning and eliminated that confusion.
The second criticism is more a matter of taste, I suppose. I’ve now read five or six books by this author, and I found all of them well-written and compelling. All of them have explored the good and bad in human nature. The characters have endured human-caused trauma and also benefited from the kindness of friends and strangers. The resolution of this story, though, wasn’t very believable. Yes, it’s nice to think that people could be so kind and generous and selfless, but as a practical matter, it’s hard to believe they could have managed it. I mean, no matter how much a person wants to help someone else, can that person really afford to put his or her own future at risk … particularly for a cause that’s not a life or death situation? I’m sorry that’s so vague; I’m trying to express my skepticism toward certain aspects of the story resolution without explicit spoilers, which is difficult.
Bottom line: while this was a well-written book, and I truly enjoyed some aspects of it, it’s the least believable book I’ve read by this author. Whether someone else would enjoy it probably depends on how much realism that person expects in a non-fantasy story.