ARC #Review: BURNING MIDNIGHT by Will McIntosh

BURNING MIDNIGHT

Author: Will McIntosh
Source: eARC via the Publisher
Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: February 2, 2016
Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Summary:
Seventeen-year-old David Sullivan’s life is about to change—all because of one tiny, priceless item found in the murky bottom of a Brooklyn water tower.

Sully is a sphere dealer at a flea market. It doesn’t pay much—Alex Holliday’s stores have muscled out most of the independent sellers—but it helps him and his mom make rent.

No one knows where the brilliant-colored spheres came from. One day they were just there, hidden all over the earth like huge gemstones. Burn a pair and they make you a little better: an inch taller, skilled at math, better-looking. The rarer the sphere, the more expensive—and the greater the improvement.

When Sully meets Hunter, a girl with a natural talent for finding spheres, the two start searching together. One day they find a Gold—a color no one has ever seen. And when Alex Holliday learns what they have, he will go to any lengths, will use all of his wealth and power, to take it from them.

There’s no question the Gold is worth millions, but what does it actually do? None of them is aware of it yet, but the fate of the world rests on this little golden orb. Because all the world fights over the spheres, but no one knows where they come from, what their powers are, or why they’re here. 

Purchase:

Amazon | Chapters | TBD

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I loved the premise of this book and was immediately enthralled with the idea of spheres giving people abilities. I think it was so interesting that not only did Scully sell these at a flea market, but he also discovered a new one. I really liked his relationship with is friends, Hunter, and Alex Holliday. I think character wise this was a really great book. But the characters weren't enough to save it for me.

There was a definite turning point. I liked some of the lead up to finding the Gold sphere and it's twin, but it got a bit boring at this point for me because Scully and Hunter weren't really doing much about anything and scraping by. It seemed like once they found the gold, it was about finding the OTHER gold and all I really wanted to know was what it did. And even that ended up being a disappointment. 

I felt like the story took a nosedive and became this weird semi-preachy novel about aliens and God. Which made it a strange mix. I thought the ending was kinda tacky tbh. So throughout the novel, Scully mentions that no one knows where the spheres come from and that he has heard both sides of the debate about aliens and God and the Devil a billion times. Then once Hunter burns the gold spheres, we find out that it IS aliens and that she can communicate with the one inside her -- but all the spheres have implanted aliens inside people. She then becomes a different version of herself where she is obsessed with finding the matching Midnight Blue sphere so she can burn it because the alien inside her is telling her it will solve all her problems. Which ???? Anyway, obviously it does not solve problems and there is an alien invasion which is then solved when Hunter makes the Midnight Blue go back into it's spheres even though this had never been done before. 

But it was just SO STUPID. Like I couldn't handle it because it was just such a lame way to end this book. From like 60% onwards I had zero interest or care about the characters or their problems. I was kinda hoping the aliens would eat them and take them back to their homeland because they were quite annoying 

This had so much potential and went so downhill after the Gold spheres were found and burned. I liked the overall idea and thought it was really well written, but the ending was overdone and something I could have lived without.