Review of daynight, by Megan Thomason

I got daynight when it was free on Amazon. It was the top download in teen sci-fi and my own book couldn’t move it from that top spot. So I thought, what the hey? And I got it and began reading it.

There is so much that is amazing about daynight. It’s a complex story with a complex background, so much so that there were times when I was reeling from trying to absorb it all. The pacing is often quick, and sometimes too quick because the ideas are just that complex, which I think testifies to the creativity of the worlds within the story.

I’m not sure how to explain without potentially giving away spoilers, and since I can’t really tell what the spoilers would be (because there are super cool revelations all through the book that might blow your mind a bit), I won’t go into very many details. My review will simply gloss the surface in order to preserve the element of surprise.

Let’s just say, I was completely blown away by potentially one of the coolest ideas about Earth and this alternate world of Thera. That doesn’t even explain it. But it’s brilliant.

So anyway, I prefer to be REALLY subjective in my reviews because I’m not a professional reviewer, nor do I work for Clarion or Kirkus. I just like to hear myself.

I loved Kira. Sometimes I thought she was too smart for her age, but then, I have no recollection of how intelligent or dumb I was at her age. She’s incredibly clever and tough. I rooted for her from the beginning. The only time I ever wanted to punch her out was when she was being totally blind about who loved her and who didn’t.

BUT, I remember LOADS of times when I was intentionally BLIND to the romantic inclinations of my guy friends. Like, completely and purposefully daft just to preserve the friendship or because I wouldn’t DARE be so arrogant as to assume that all these guys wanted a piece of me.

So I forgive Kira for being blind. Totally human.

I thought Blake and Ethan were great, and I can see why Kira is torn between them, but I think I’m in the Ethan camp. Sorry Blake. Their histories explain them really well, though I tend to hate flashback as a way to reveal it–sometimes I don’t know if there’s another way to do that, especially for Blake.

I think in the end, daynight only reveals a fraction of the complexity of the story. The end left me wanting to read the next book, which is great. My biggest reason for only rating it 4.5 stars is because there were times when the inner dialogue could have shed MORE light on specific events in the story.

There were circumstances where I was like, WTF!? But the characters just keep moving forward. I have no idea if that’s even fair of me to say, because it ends up being akin to one of those 48 Hours Mysteries where witnesses are saying things like, “She just behaved really oddly after he was murdered. Like, no tears. And then she said let’s go out for coffee to me. And WOULD A PERSON WHO’S BOYFRIEND WAS JUST BRUTALLY MURDERED SAY THAT?” And the answer is, who the hell knows? Guess what? People handle things differently.

So would Kira do some of the stuff she does? Who knows? The author knows. Kira knows. But I just want to know what Kira is thinking. I want to know why she presses forward and if she’s anguished inside and scared and doesn’t want to even crawl out of bed, I want to know that. And sometimes she says that, but often she doesn’t.

I hope Megan keeps writing and the series just gets better. She has wicked sweet ideas that I’ve never read before, nor thought of before, but they’re so good that I’m like, “Damn her! It should have been mine!”