Middlegame book review

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Published by Tor.com Publishing on May 7, 2019
Pages: 528
Goodreads

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.

Middlegame has been on my list for the absolute longest time and I love reading the Wayward Children series. I definitely think this book is WAY more adult than those and there is some pretty awful violence and themes that run through this so just be aware. I think I went into this expecting it to be a little bit like the Wayward Children and was more than surprised by the violence and complexity of the storyline, but I LOVED it. I think this book is one that overwhelms you at the beginning and then by the end you get the eureka moment and it was so well done. I think this will definitely be a part of my favourite books of the year post!

The main characters of Middlegame are Roger and Dodger, who are two people raised on separate sides of the United States. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone but they end up getting entangled with each other. I loved these two I think out of them both, Dodger was my favourite, I feel like she worked a lot harder than Roger and I loved watching her trying to figure out where she fits in within the world. I think there are two sorts of factions of this book, there are the alchemy side and the fantastical elements but there is also the faction where you watch two confused kids growing up and struggling with their identity and that blew me away. I loved Erin and the different levels of her life, and even the villains in this one were really well done. I just think even if the alchemy elements weren’t in this book the characters would be able to stand on there own. There wasn’t one underdeveloped character throughout this whole book.

The best bits of Middlegame for me was the “lore” and the scientific knowledge that is interspersed all the way through this book. I thought the way that this book managed to keep me so enthralled and attached to the characters and the suspense that was created by some of the characters. I really loved the feeling of panic and fear that runs all the way through this book. I loved watching the villains work their plans and I loved the dual perspective and all the added moments of the fantasy fiction books within the story. I would totally be here for a book that was just the Up-And-Under series!

I loved this book but I did think that the downfall of Middlegame was the repetition and the way the relationship ended going through the same cycles and it started to get a little predictable. There were definitely moments of frustration and I wish that the characters were a little more tuned in. Also, the beginning of this book was a lot to take in, there was a lot of information and it almost lost me but I’m glad I persevered.

Definitely! Definitely! This is a book I would recommend to the end of time, Middlegame was a great book with a lot of different levels and characters that all stand on their own two feet. One of my favourite books this year.

Have you read Middlegame? What did you think? What was your favourite bit? Let me know in the comments!