I Shall Wear Midnight

I Shall Wear Midnight by Sir Terry Pratchett
Harper, 2010
347 pages
9780061433047

Once every hundred years or so, someone gets the idea that witches are bad. That someone tells someone else, and soon the entire village gets ideas of burning and stoning said witches, then moving on to innocent villagers whose only crimes are old age, ugly faces, or both. Unfortunately for Tiffany Aching, witch of The Chalk, the time of restlessness and unease has come to her stead. She knows she must figure out what is causing the unrest and put it to bed before it goes too far. Along the way, she makes some unlikely friends and suffers through old ones, mainly the Wee Free Men.

Why I picked it up: I had no idea that it was part of a series. I just knew that Pratchett had written another book and I had to read it.

Judging by the cover...: The Wee Free Men might be a little off-putting, but holding fire? Sweet. And the title? I desperately wanted to know what it meant before I even knew anything about the book.

Favorite Elements:

• Three words: Sir. Terry. Pratchett. - If you have not read anything by this genius, what are you waiting for. I will admit that I have not read everything by him, but I don't worry about ever running out of his books to read. And when I am done with his massive list of works, I will start all over again.
• Discworld: If you haven't guessed already, Pratchett's books are the end all and be all of awesome literature. There's a reason the man is a knight. Discworld, his vast creation in which his characters reside, is a masterpiece in itself. I would totally move there in a heartbeat if it were real.
• Witches: They get a bad rap, it seems, but Tiffany and her fellow witches are some of the most interesting people in Discworld.
• Scottish Accents: It's not said for sure that the Wee Free Men speak with them, but that's how I imagine their voices in my head. If I had those guys for sidekicks, there would be no end to the crazy hi-jinks we'd get into.
• Sir Terry Pratchett - I already used that one? Oh. Darn.

Overall (out of 5): 5
Is my fan girl showing yet? This perfect rating is not undeserved, either. The insanely witty dialog and crazy amounts of details that are paid attention to make Pratchett's books the most entertaining and engaging stories I have ever read. I have to shutter myself away when I want to read his novels, otherwise I get weird looks from the almost insane amount of laughing I do. This isn't your run of the mill comedy novel though. Oftentimes the humor is so embedded in the story that you have to really stay on your toes to pick up on it. I was given one by a friend my freshman year of college and have not stopped raving about Discworld ever since. Midnight is the fourth book in the Tiffany Aching series, but is really an extension of his normal adult fare but written for a young adult audience. That I was able to pick up Midnight and know exactly what was going on, without reading the other three, shows how skillful at his craft he really is.

Recommendation: If you're as much as a fan of Pratchett as I am, you'll already have read this. And if you're not a fan, that's because you haven't read his works yet. Don't worry about which one you start with, either. So what are you waiting for?!