Audiobook Review – The Dead of Night (Tomorrow, Book 2) by John Marsden (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction/War
Length: 7 hours and 5 minutes (280 pages)
Publisher: Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd
Release Date: March 16, 2006
ASIN: B000F2C6UA
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Tomorrow series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

This is the second book in the Tomorrow series Marsden, it was an okay continuation of the Tomorrow series by Marsden.

Ellie and her five friends are still struggling to survive after unknown enemies invaded their small Australian town. Two of their friends have been taken behind enemy lines and Ellie and Homer work together with the other to mount a rescue mission. They are all struggling with the larger question of how to make a difference and fight this invasion on their own terms. They are also hoping to find another group of natives to work with and really make a difference in this war.

My main complaint with this book is that it’s a short book and not much happens. There are vast sections of nothingness while we wait for the characters to get to the next interesting event. While this does a good job of conveying the boredom interspersed by spurts of deadly scenarios, it’s not that exciting to read about. After reading this book I understand how the series can go on for seven books, it just progresses incredibly slowly.

All the characters are okay. The book is told completely from Ellie’s POV which means we see all of the other characters colored by her perspective. There wasn’t as much interesting survival in this book; there were more conflicts between the characters and lots of discussion about how to make a difference to the war effort.

Ellie rehashes her feelings over and over again; feelings about killing, about violence, and about how the rest of the world is reacting. There is just too much of this and not enough action. I found a lot of it to be quite boring. Some of the discussion is good, but similar themes are just repeated over and over.

We don’t really learn a lot more about “the enemy” either. Most of the questions asked in the first book remain largely unanswered.

Overall this was an okay addition to the series but I probably won’t read any more of this series. The idea is interesting, however I am not a huge fan of war stories. I do enjoy survival stories, but there is a lot less survival stuff in this book than there was in the first book. I also feel like the story moves very slowly and the characters in here aren’t my favorite either.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Audiobook Reading Challenge