Elizabeth's Midnight


Young Adult - Adventure
352 Pages
Reviewed on 06/04/2015
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Elizabeth's Midnight is a young adult adventure story written by Aaron Michael Ritchey. Bethie Meyers is 16 years old and lives with her mother and her twin sisters, if living outside on the porch can really be considered being part of the household or the family. Bethie's father left the family a while ago, and she really didn't blame him. Mother Meyers is harsh, physically abusive and controlling, and Bethie wishes she could leave the family as well. The high point of her life is her weekly visit to the Gentle Whispers Nursing Home, where her Grandmother May, a catatonic patient, has lived for the last ten years. Bethie brings her Jane Austen reader and spends an hour reading aloud. Mother Meyers is seriously considering transferring Grandmother May to a nursing home in Mexico as a cost-cutting measure and Bethie secretly destroys the brochures that arrive from the home to try to keep that from happening.

Aaron Michael Ritchey's young adult adventure story, Elizabeth's Midnight, is one of the most compelling and exciting coming of age stories that I've read in some time. I was thrilled when Bethie's Grandmother May opened her eyes and proposed an adventure of a lifetime to her beaten down and repressed granddaughter. Then I cheered as the new Elizabeth took over from the Bethie who had lost her self-esteem so long ago and watched as she became a strong, adventurous young woman who could do just about anything...with a little help. Grandmother May is a rich and regal figure whose return to life seems a heroic effort to rejoin her lost wartime love, but is ultimately designed to rescue her granddaughter. Elizabeth's Midnight is beautifully written, and I was hooked into the story from the first page. Its message is positive and inspiring, especially for the Bethies out there who have their own Mother Meyers to fear and esteem issues to cope with, and who desperately need to keep their dreams alive. Elizabeth's Midnight is most highly recommended.