On the Bookshelf

Jessica has discovered her Midnighter ability and can finally defend herself against the Darklings. However, as the Midnighters dig deeper into the history of the secret hour and Midnighters in Bixby, they realise that Jessica might be the only one that the Darklings are after. Even worse, Jessica and her friends can no longer count themselves as safe in normal time when they discover that the Darklings have daylight supporters seeking them out.
Touching Darkness is a bit darker than The Secret Hour was. The Secret Hour was more an adventure of discovery as you newly explore midnight with Jessica. In Touching Darkness you start to learn more about the nasty history of midnight in Bixby and why all the Midnighters disappeared nearly fifty years ago, not to mention the chilling concept of the Halfling along with the warped, manipulative nature of mindcasters.
Jessica is still the main character but the perspective does get passed on to the other Midnighters a lot more often in this second installment in the trilogy.Personally, I considered this to be a good thing. Dess is my favourite character so it was really good to see more of her and it was great to get more insight into the nature of Melissa and Rex's relationship. Now I look back, though, Jonathan may have been a little neglected.

One thing that bothered me, about the edition that I was reading at least (1904233848), is that there were a number of grammatical errors and typos. This isn't entirely Westerfeld's fault, of course, as his editor should have been more thorough. It really disrupts the flow of an otherwise excellent book when I have to stop and reread a line over several times to realise that the word "he" was supposed to be "if" or when my brain starts nagging me that there should have been a comma there and to wonder why exactly is a word is randomly capitalised.
Terra