Review: Good Morning, Midnight: A Novel

Good Morning, Midnight: A Novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Augustine lives alone an an observatory at the north pole, living out his days doing what he loves when everyone else evacuated. Sullly is an astronaut on the way back to Earth from Jupiter. How will their lives intersect?

I got this from the fine folks at Random House.

Good Morning, Midnight is a story of loneliness, time, and deciding what's important. The two main characters, Augustine and Sully, both live lives of isolation. Augustine is an astronomer at the north pole and Sully is a Specialist on a space voyage. Both have their ways of life uprooted. Augustine meets Iris, a mysterious girl left behind after the evacuation and Sully suffers loss and hope on the Aethir.

Lily Brooks-Dalton paints some awesome scenery. Both settings were very well realized. I shivered a few times during Augustine's parts and felt pretty claustrophobic at times during Sully's. On the surface, it feels like a science fiction story but it's really an exploration of loneliness, drive, and isolation.

I guessed the connection between Augustine and Sully early on. I think Iris' origins were left intentionally ambiguous. By and large, I can't think of a whole lot to complain about. The writing was crisp, I cared about the characters, and I was pretty enthralled by the whole thing.

Caution - Possible Spoilers: There was some ambiguity I didn't care for, though. I wouldn't have minded finding out what catastrophe befell Earth while the astronauts were away. Iris possibly being Augustine's fever dream the entire time cheapened his thread, I thought. I think some people won't like that Augustine and Sully never actually meet. I was fine with that part, though.

Good Morning, Midnight was above and beyond the simple science fiction novel I thought it would be, riding the line between sci-fi and serious literature. Four out of five stars.


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