Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness

by Scott Westerfeld

Book Overview

The second book in New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters series.

As the Midnighters search for the truth about the secret hour, they uncover terrifying mysteries woven into the very fabric of Bixby's history, and a conspiracy that touches the world of daylight.

This time Jessica Day is not the only Midnighter in mortal danger, and if the group can't find a way to come together, they could...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060519541
• ISBN13: 9780060519544
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Harper Teen
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

Great Second Book In Series

The book Touching Darkness, is the second book in the Midnighters series. In Bixby, Oklahoma, five teenagers in High School have an extra hour, when time freezes. There are also darklings (bad animals that only live an hour a day), that are trying to get Rex, (one of the Midnighters) because they need someone new to communicate with their human allies. (SPOILER) My favorite part in this book is the part when they are fighting the darklings and slithers, near the end of the book. Jessica (the main character) goes out with another midnighter and try to save Rex. Rex has changed into a darkling, and is one of them now. Jessica saves him by killing all the darklings with her powerful beam of light. She then turns her flashlight on Rex to get the darkling skin off of him. This is my favorite part because it has a lot of action and suspense. I recommend this book to everyone. It is filled with action, suspense, and even mystery about the extra hour at midnight. Touching Darkness makes me think about new things and extends my imagination because the book is so creative. I also recommend this book because it kept me reading, it's a real page turner. I like the book because it shows how someone can be torn away from a regular life, to the life full of secrets, and of trying to survive from things, almost no one else knows about. That is why I recommend this book; I also think you should read the first book of the series before this one, to help understand it.

Best Book after all of my already favorites

If you liked The Uglies and the like you would love the triology of books called The Midnighters by Scott Westerfield. This is a great book to read after you read the first book. The second I think so far was the best book. It really captured and pulled me in and it was very emotional for me too. It is basically about some teenagers who live in Bixby, Oklahoma. For all you Midnighter's fans you know how many letters are in the city and state! They all can move around during the blue time and fight off the really creepy buggy things. I know real descriptive but, I cannnot remember what the name of them are, well I will get back to you on that. So, I rate it a good book for summer reading after or before you read your required reading if you have any! Happy Pre-Summer! *Tinkfairy_reader34

The Second Journey

Jessica and her frineds are part of a secret world. A world of special ablities and meatls that destroy. A world that only opens at the stroke of midnight and last for only one hour each day, halting time in the daylight realm, and opening the door was to the blue hour of midnight. Jessica and her midnighter friends are faced with a major problem, a daylight person knows of the secret midnight hour, and is stalking Jessica! Now it is a rush aginst time as they learn of a deadly plot, of the secrets of the darklings, and a grusome fate that could await one of their friends. Can they save him in time, or will he fall, helplessly, into the hands of their darkling enemys and their daylight allies. Can they save him? Find out in. Midnighters #2: Touching Darkness.

An exciting, mysterious adventure

"Touching Darkness" continues the saga of the five midnighters: Rex the Seer, who can sense Focus and has a knack for history, Melissa the Mindcaster, a mysterious, reclusive psychic, Dess the Polymath, who's brilliantly mathematically inclined (and also my favorite character), Johnathan the Acrobat, who can literally leap tall buildings in a single bound, and our heroine Jessica, who's recently discovered powers of Fire-Bringing can incinerate scourges of darklings (read: the bad guys) in a single shine of her flashlight. A new threat against the Midnighters has arisen in their small town of Bixby, Oklahoma. It turns out traitorous humans are now working for the darklings, meaning the daylight 24 hours of the day (as opposed to the single secret hour) are no longer safe for our heroes. And they seem to be after Rex in an effort to transform him into a grotesque half-human half-darkling beast... This sequel definitely doesn't disappoint, and I was pleased that it went into such great depth about the characters, especially Melissa, who was the biggest mystery of Book One. Like a previous reviewer, I was however disappointed about the lack of fight scenes. The fight scenes we do get end pretty quickly, thanks to Jessica's unstoppable Fire-Bringer power. I'm interested to know what the darklings will be trying in the next installment, because their plan sure failed miserably this time -- Jess burned them to a crisp! I like Scott Westerfeld's simple, easy-to-follow writing style, and the creativity put into the storyline, especially the bit about tridecalogisms, is just wonderful. I highly recommend this book (but don't touch it before you've read the first!) and will be anxiously awaiting Blue Noon! I'd love to find out about the "metallurge" power that was briefly mentioned!

Wow!

A great follow up to The Secret Hour, this book is one that I, personally, found hard to put down...Westerfeld weaves a great story about the midnighters, people who can see the 'blue hour' and move about in it: Rex, Melissa, Jessica, Dess, and Jonathan. As before, it seems that trouble is brewing among the darklings, and one of the midnighters is in danger (I'm not the best at plot descriptions, in case you haven't already noticed, lol), and it is not Jessica. The story of the midnighters and basically history of Bixby is explored more in this book, and a few things are pulled together, but the third volume of the series still has a long way to go (guessing by how my side-plots splintered out of Touching Darkness)...and so I will happily await the third installment. The few complaints I have are as follows: Westerfeld uses the word 'maelstorm' way too many times to make the word, which normally is a good, mature adjective, into something forgetable. He used this once in Uglies, his other book which I am not finished reading, and I almost groaned at the thought of seeing this word another 5-billion times, but thankfully he only used it once there...I digress, however. This was not the major disappointment of the book. Just an annoyance. But the major complaint I had was that there weren't many interesting battle scenes up until the end, which was OK as it helped to focus on the characters but was also a bit of a let down. Westerfeld delves more into the midnighters and their fragile cooperation in this novel, relationships, etc, which is interesting. I was hoping to see more of Jessica, the kick-@$$ fire-bringer, but again, not really until the end. Still, it was a great, enjoyable read with a AWESOME ending, I think, semi-cliffhanger-ish but not to an extreme degree. I would recommend this to all of my friends.