I just couldn't get into this college reunion speculative fiction book. I even tried listening to the audiobook version which is narrated by my very fav, Natalie Naudus and it still felt way too complex and out there to capture my interest. Just not the book for me sadly. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

In general, I really really enjoyed this story. At any given time it felt like Harrison was the puppet master and I did not know what was or what is, but in a good way. Like the kind of way that keeps you thinking about the book even when you're not actively reading it, that keeps you guessing but not questioning. I loved it

If you’re into sci-fi thrillers with a dash of mystery, The Midnight Club is a must-read! Twenty-five years ago, four friends tried a drug that let them time travel—and one ended up dead. Now, they’re back for a reunion to honor their friend, but someone has other plans and wants to use the drug again.

I loved the sci-fi twist and the locked-room mystery vibes. It’s the perfect mix for anyone who enjoys a good whodunnit with a bit of time-bending magic thrown in!

The Midnight Club bent and broke some of my previous ideas about what “time travel” could mean. If you are looking for a thriller, I don’t recommend this one. If you are a reteophiliac and you want a short read, this one is for you.
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We see our main characters “sog” as college students and see glimpses of their future, but we also see them sog as middle-aged people and rediscover their past. The idea that the travel is in their heads (or is it?) was a concept I enjoyed exploring and I think the author explained it well. I enjoyed the second half of the book, but the first half would have lost me.
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The pacing was slow. And it felt like a thriller that didn’t deliver a killing blow. For me as a reader, the paragraphs were lacking structure. The characters’ inner thoughts meandered while their actions jumped and skipped, which left me wondering, “Who said this? Where are they, again? How did that happen?”
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I still want to read other works by the author. I’ve followed her on TikTok for a while and I have thoroughly enjoyed her content. Thank you to Margot Harrison, Harlequin Trade Publishing, Graydon Books, and NetGalley for this DRC!

This was a very interesting concept. I liked the concept of time traveling through the use of sogging. It was intriguing throughout to piece meal together what happened in the past as well as what was going on in the future. The book incorporates a unique look at what we have done in the past and takes us on an emotional ride and puts the reader in a place to evaluate their own life and the secrets that we hold throughout. The book was slow in some parts but picked up for me in the middle. As a reader, if you want a book that is similar to Recursion by Blake Crouch this would be a good next step.

Thank you to Graydon House for the digital copy to review.

I went into this one blind and therefore was not expecting the sci fi element, but I thought it worked well. It is a fascinating premise that was executed well, and sometimes I can easily get lost in and/or confused in time travel books but I did not in this one, in fact it was very easy to follow. I enjoyed this very much and think that most who pick this one up will really enjoy it overall.

This was such an interesting concept and intriguing mystery. However, the ever-changing perspectives and timelines did get confusing to me at times and the ending left me with some questions. I never really felt connected to the characters and found it hard to believe this substance was kept relatively secret for so long. It was definitely a unique read and made me think!

This was a sadder, slower book than I was expecting. It also wasn't as thrilling as I'd hoped it would be. The writing was decent though and the story did keep me guessing as I tried to figure out what was going on. There's definitely a lot to like here with the characters and all the details, so I can see how other readers might find it more enjoyable than I did.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

I'm going to be honest, I was a little nervous to read this book after seeing the goodreads rating, but I was actually pleasantly surprised. I think the story was a bit slow at the start, but i became fully invested about a third of the way in. It took a bit too long for the mystery to really get started. This book also switches perspectives between Sonia and Byron. I enjoyed both their narratives and was invested in their stories, but I couldn't say the same about the rest of the characters. I'm not sure if it was because they were unreliable narrators or what, but all the side characters were infuriating and kind of terrible. It was so odd, because even Jennet felt so unlikable in all the flashback scenes. I guess Sonia and Byron were honestly also pretty unlikable, so maybe just everyone in this book is the worst? (Now that I think about it more, I wonder if that is the point. Jennet wasn't some perfect person but nostalgia and whatever makes them all remember her that way)

I really wanted to enjoy this story and was excited based on the premise, but it was just did not provide enough of an emotional investment in the characters for me. I found myself struggling to finish this book even though I really wanted to know where it was going.

Overall, I would rate this book 3 stars as I really felt the concept of a drug that allows the user to see the future/past and mystery of a decades old death was engaging.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the arc in exchanged for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I liked the premise of this story. This book never quite felt realistic to me. From the nightly experiments to each character’s reactions it all sort of felt strange and a bit forced. I kept waiting for the story to find its way but it never felt like it did. By the end I wasn’t invested in any of the characters or the ending. 2.5 rounded up to 3.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

The Midnight Club written by Margo Harrison is a story I had a hard time getting into and once I did I found myself intrigued but lost to the fact it was hard to know the characters. College friends come together for A reunion weekend Sonia Baran and Paul are all invited to Orly‘s house with hints of delving in to the tragic past and at first it looks like Sonya and Berron won’t attend but when they make a Plan B just in case, they decide to show up together. Especially since he is newly divorced and Sonia has been fired from her job as a professor they have nothing better to do. Paul is a successful journalist in New York City and Oralee, has moved back to their college town and finish renovating a Victorian era house and turned into a B&B were all of them will stay Halloween weekend for the reunion. From the beginning you can see the awkwardness between the friends and once they start doing the time travel drug that causes them to have glimpses of their past it shows them parts of their past most don’t remember and others would like to forget. While all this is going on Sonia takes it upon herself to do a little investigating into the tragedy. Will the friends find out what really happened the night of the tragic event? I wish I could say I absolutely loved this book because I absolutely loved Margot Harrison‘s book We Made It All Up and thought this one would be just as good but as I say not every book is for every reader in this one although entertaining was not for me. Except for Paul and Ora Lee I really couldn’t get a fix on the type of people Sonya and Beron were supposed to be. I also didn’t get the rules for the pine sap concoction they took for time travel purposes I thought I did in the beginning but that whole thing about being stuck there in voluntary and involuntary glimpses, were kind of confusing to me. having said that the book was still better than a lot of books and if you love a pretty good read give this one a try my friend Loved it I just thought it was only OK. #NetGalley, #HarlequinPublishing, #MargotHarrison, #TheMidnightClub,

What’s a book that gave you high hopes, but ended up falling flat for you?

Thank you to Harlequin for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Midnight Club is a thriller with a speculative fantasy side where a group of college friends are mysteriously invited to relive the mysterious death of their college friend.

What I hoped to be a deep dive into dynamic friendships and a mysterious thriller turned out to be that but flat. This book had really great concepts in theory but really missed the mark when it came to interesting characters and a well thought out plot. I really didn’t have any connections to the characters and when you are exploring their past, that aspect is really important to me. It simply lead to me not even caring about the death of the friend.

The good moments this book had was blending the thriller and the fantasy aspects of being able to relive one’s past and even the college academic setting was interesting. However those alone couldn’t save my interest in the characters.

Overall if you’re looking for fantasy/thriller blend with an exploration of character, death, and how our actions affect those around us, you might enjoy this read. However, I’d read on at your own risk.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for this ARC the below review is made of my own thoughts.

The Midnight Club by Margot Harrison tells the story of four college friends that reunite 25 years after their last meeting. Aureleigh decides to bring the club back together as she has acquired SOG and wants to go over what all the friends knew or possibly saw on the day their friend, Jennet died. The book is divided by voluntary and involuntary memories, these were possible through SOG, and the present. The chapters mentioning the present are mostly through Sonia or Byron´s POV but we do get some from Aureleigh or Paul´s POV.

For those who have not read SOG is a drug that makes possible to access memories, if you are young it goes in your future memories but if you are older you are able to access past memories. With this drug the club is able to try and piece together what happened that lead to Jennet´s last night with them.

I thought the book overall was very unique and the story was able to grip me early on, I kept reading and did not want to stop reading this book. I did feel the end dragged a bit but other than that I did really like this book. I also, feel like it could have went a bit more further into Jennet´s struggles before that faithful night.

Overall this was a fast read for me and a good whodunit with a fantasy spin to it.

The Midnight Club was my first book by Margot Harrison but definitely will not be my last.

This was such a unique intriguing concept of a book! I
loved the dark academia vibe of the story. I really enjoyed the concept and thought provoking aspects in the story regarding time travel. The story was engaging with various pov to help tell a full picture of the story.

I really struggled with this one. It felt very long (it wasn’t. Just over 300 pages), and was very difficult to follow. It did keep my interest just enough to see it through but I probably should have put it down a week ago.

Strong Premise Reminiscent Of The Flatliners. Ok, this is possibly a bit of a stretch even for me, but that is where my mind is going as I think about this book, and I think it applies *enough* to give you, the reader of my review, a sense of both the overall tone and style of this book, at least to a point. In both this book and that movie, you have a group of people coming together to test the bounds of medical knowledge... and things go wrong, of course. Add in the "time travel" (ish) element of the book (which could have used a great deal of internal clarification, fwiw, but worked well enough), and you've got an interestingly dark, almost goth/ emo/ gothic kind of vibe going on throughout, which the overall setting of our "current" timeline really helps to establish, particularly down the stretch into the endgame.

Overall an intriguing debut, and I'm looking forward to seeing what this author does next.

Very much recommended.

This sounded like an intriguing story from the get go, but I was still surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I found it to be a read that was easy to consume and moved along very quickly. I couldn't help but think of concepts like Flatliners when reading this, but the concept itself was still unique in its own way. It was definitely a fun ride, and a good read for spooky season. It definitely makes you think, but was a really fun experience overall.

This was an interesting concept. I enjoyed the discussion about memories and nostalgia and how that impacts our current views and choices.

The characters are interesting but not overly flushed out or easily relatable characters. There is a lot of focus on their flaws which is important for the context of the story, but also gave a negative overall feel to the book. There’s truly not one character that I think I liked at all times, but did understand them at different points of their stories.

The concept of “time travel” and what it means to make differences in others lives through the lens of mental health was done well. Each character had responsibility and acceptance and guilt for what happened in their past. The growth of their values made sense for age and generation.

It was well paced and I enjoyed the memories they experienced. I just wish there was a different word than “sog”……it was used soooooo much.

A group of four old college friends reunite 25 years after the untimely death of their friend Jennet. They embark on a time bending journey to figure out what happened the night she died using a mysterious substance called 'sog' that allows them to access old memories. But will their group survive rediscovering the events of that night?

I believe that the biggest flaw of this book was that it didn't convincingly get us to care about the titular 'Midnight Club'. We never really get to see them be the midnight club (staying up all night to complete issues of the college's literary magazine). It was a case of telling us that they are such good friends without really showing the bond between the five of them. Without a believably tight knit group, I found it hard to care about the central mystery and how/why the friend group fell apart. Obviously not all characters have to be likable but they should at least be compelling or interesting. Sadly, none of our main four are either of these things. And to be honest, I found Jennet to be particularly insufferable and could not understand why everyone else found her so engaging.

The idea of 'sog' as a substance that allows you to travel back and forth between the past and the future was super cool. I wish we had expanded more on the concept of a possible multiverse being created by using the sog in a way it shouldn't have been. Instead we got a poorly thought out ending that didn't end any of the character arcs satisfactorily. (in my opinion).

Reviews going live on Goodreads, Storygraph and Fable on 9/26 and on Tik tok on 9/27.