A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott

It's me again! Today I want to talk about a book I finished a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't find the time to write about it because of finals. It's "A Wish After Midnight" by Zetta Elliott, which I discovered because it was only 99 cents on the Kindle Store the day I purchased it. 

Source: Goodreads

Plot:

The book is about 15-year-old Gemma who lives in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn with her mother and her siblings. She's not happy with the situation she's in because she wants to go to college, but her mother doesn't have enough money to send her, her siblings sell drugs and get in trouble, she thinks she's not pretty enough to ever have a boyfriend (ugh!) because she's "too black" ... and so on. Basically she wishes for a better life but nothing really happens... until one night she time travels back to the Civil War era Brooklyn and gets to know how hard life can really be.

My Thoughts: (Spoiler Alert!)

What I thought was missing in this book was an explanation. It might just me be but I didn't get the purpose of the time travel. Why did she travel back to 1864? To realize that 2001 has many more opportunities for her? How did the time travel thing happen? How long was she over there? What did Judah do to travel back in time? Many things were left without explanation. What happened to the family she worked for? The doctor, his wife, their little son, Nannie, the Irish girl, the black woman with her three children? And most important of all: What happened to Judah?

Judah's and Genna's "romance" didn't really feel real to me. It seemed like the author wanted to add that relationship aspect to the book. I didn't even like Judah, maybe because we didn't get to know him at all.

I felt like the book skipped over some exciting parts (like how the two got together) and focused on Genna's ongoing pessimist monologue. What she thinks of her mom, her Dad, her siblings, the white guy she met at the botanic garden…
Genna really could have traveled back in time earlier on in the book, because nothing really happened at all in the first part of the book.

But I don't only have negative things to say about "A Wish After Midnight". I really liked Genna as a character. At first her first person narration really went on my nerves because she repeated everything over and over, but Genna is a clever and likable girl. She's determined, fresh, educated… I have to admit I found myself somewhere in her, my self confidence isn't the best, either :)

All in all the book was a quick read, and I enjoyed reading it, but the ending and some parts in the middle of the book didn't satisfy me. 

I'm giving it a 3,5 out of 5.

Oh - I almost forgot something:

25 Books Challenge: 3/25!!!