Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.
Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.
Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.
Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.
Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.
I am such a fan of Seanan McGuire. Her imagination and her characters are amazing. Middlegame is no exception to this. The first time I picked up Middlegame (at the beginning of last year), I was spoiled by early reviews and I decided to put it away until those reviews would not affect my reading experience. Now that I've gone back and reread/finished Middlegame, I see why there were so many spoilers. This book is really hard to discuss otherwise, so I'll skip any actual plot points.
My favorite scenes are in the beginning of Middlegame when we are getting to know the characters of Roger and Dodger and the connection between them. Seanan McGuire's stories are so brilliant and so fun. I'm here for her story ideas for life.
There are a lot of time jumps in Middlegame, though. It's necessary to the story, but as a reader I rarely enjoy jumps in time. They pull me out of the story and away from the characters, and there's just no way my preference could overcome the amount of shifts in Middlegame. The story got progressively slower as the book went on, and as much as I loved the premise and the characters and the writing, it still managed to be difficult to get through.
⭐⭐⭐★★
Review copy provided by publisher
I still need to read this one but I definitely will be since I love the author so much. I checked it out several times from my library without reading it so Mr. Barb got me my own copy for Christmas since it's one of my fave authors. Glad you enjoyed it and I've managed to not see any spoilers.
ReplyDeleteThat's a perfect Christmas present book.
DeleteI loved this, but I don't mind time jumps so that format choice really worked for me. I did love the beginning too, learning how Roger and Dodger meet and grow up😁
ReplyDeleteYeah, I really think that one thing was what made it hard for me to continue connecting with it.
DeleteJumps aren't my favorite thing. They usually hurt my brain, haha.
ReplyDeleteThis one hurt my brain a little.
DeleteSeanan McGuire writes pretty amazing stuff, I'd have to agree. I've only read a few of her books so far but I've been impressed, and I love how different her books can be too. This certainly sounds good.
ReplyDeleteI know. I really want to just read whatever she writes.
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