The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I read The Day of the Triffids last year and thoroughly enjoyed it – I wouldn’t say I enjoyed this one quite as much but it was definitely worth the read.
– This novel follows the story of a small rural town called Midwich. Midwich is a pretty unassuming place and very little seems to ever happen there. That is until one day when all of the residents drop down unconscious – there appears to be a border around the entire village and should anyone step through it they loose consciousness. After a few hours of chaos and media-intrigue the residents of the village begin to wake up – seemingly unharmed. The excitement regarding this peculiar event quickly dies down when it seems as if no visible changes had occurred within the village – that is until a few months later when all of the women of the village discover that they are pregnant. We then follow the chaos that descends on the people of the village as they try and work out how this all could have happened and their attempts to prepare for the onslaught of new-borns that will be coming their way soon! The book really picks up pace once the babies have been born and the villagers discover that there seems to be something a little odd about them. All of the children look identical and share the same glowing golden eyes.
– The first 130 or so pages were quite slow going – it took until the mysterious babies were born for the story to really suck me in and get interesting. I think the build-up was just slightly too long and I would have loved to see more of the creepy children in action!
– The characters were interesting but not totally relatable – as Wyndham often writes through the perspective of men I do find it a little harder to connect with them – especially when they’re older men. Saying that once I got into the story it didn’t really bother me I just didn’t feel a high connection as I have had with protagonists in other books.
– I would have given this book a 3 out of 5 stars but the ending was so good I bumped it up to a 4! I thought the ending was great and definitely worth the wait!
– 4 out of 5 stars and I would recommend to any lover of Wyndham or the Science fiction genre. I shall definitely be picking up more Wyndham in the future!
shoutame 