I grabbed 'Good Morning, Midnight' and started reading it on a good friend's recommendation from, admittedly, several years ago. I was more than halfway through the novel before discovering that I had downloaded the wrong one - was looking for a book by the same title, but by a different author. The one I got was written by Lily Brooks-Dalton and was her first published novel. Anyway, not to be deterred, I kept reading it while resolving to read the correct book soon. For whatever reason, the version I meant to read isn't even available as an eBook on the Kindle, though that isn't much of an excuse for my error. It's just an explanation.
This was a rather fun book. It starts in the Arctic with an elderly man named Augustine staying at the research base he was stationed at while all of the rest of the occupants evacuate due to rumors of war. He is surprised to find a young girl had been left behind. Her name was Iris. He becomes attached to her as if she were his own daughter, though she certainly isn't.
The book starts a second story arc set in space. Some astronauts are returning to Earth from a tour of Jupiter and its moons. They are alarmed to learn that there is no further communications being transmitted from Earth, but, left without options, they resolve to continue their journey back and continue to attempt to communicate.
After many up's and down's, Augustine and Iris migrate over to another nearby base with better communication abilities, having faced the same struggles of contacting anyone from their original base. And the astronauts approach Earth in its mysterious silence. The dark side of the Earth was without lights.
Eventually, Augustine and the space ship crew contact one another and try to compare notes about what has happened. Neither party knows, though.
I won't go into detail about the ending except to note that it does leave some matters open and I am not sure yet if that is to the books overall advantage in terms of quality or not. I'm still thinking about it so that's something. The book had some genuinely touching moments in it throughout, though I wanted more out of the ending than what I got. Or perhaps I simply wanted something different than what I got. Again, I'm still thinking about it.
I'll soon read the correct book, but, for now, I did enjoy this debut work.
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