Book 36 of 52

I haven't exactly stopped purchasing new books but I have decided that, no matter what new books I get, I need to try and read the ones that I have had for a long time and still haven't read. The books that have built up unread are not forgotten because I am not interested in them, but because it is very easy to get excited about something new thats right in front of you. When I think back to when I bought the forgotten books, I realize I had been just excited about those as well. And now they deserve the chance to be remembered. So I am now reading all the books that got left behind.

I decided to start by continuing with one of my favorite authors, Scott Westerfeld. After reading his Uglies series back in October of '07, I went out and bought a bunch of his other novels and series. I have already read Peeps, The Last Days and So Yesterday, but his Midnighters series had been pushed aside as other books became available. A few days ago I finished the first book in the trilogy, titled The Secret Hour.

Westerfeld has an amazing mind. He is able to come up with original and unusual worlds that pull you in and actually cause you to dream about living there. Could you imagine having an entire hour every night, where the whole world is still and silent except for you and maybe a significant other. An entire hour where the ability to fly is not just a hopeless wish, and rain stops in midair until you touch it. Every person in the world is in a catatonic state but left unharmed while you get to live your secret second life.

To me, that idea would be a dream come true. A quiet, romantic world for just myself and the one I love. Wow! But of course, this all sounds too good to be true, and it is. What kind of story would it be if there wasn't something there to ruin the fun. Something evil, a bad guy, a villain... that's where the darklings come in. They turn the dream of flying into a nightmare, they cut each passionate kiss short, every embrace is interrupted... but that's life, it is never easy and never fully undisturbed. All fiction needs some sort of reality to pull everything into perspective. Scott Westerfeld is a master at fabricating elaborate unreal worlds that make you envious of his characters but he knows that all good things must have a counterpart, something to excite and scare the reader into second guessing their ideal existence and bring them back down to earth.