Read this contemporary sci-fi novel about strange portals in NYC
The Night Shift — Natalka Burian
What to Read This Week
The Night Shift by Natalka Burian
Content warnings can be found in the footnote of this newsletter.1
What It’s About
Jean abruptly quits her job as a psychiatrist’s receptionist, and now she’s strapped for cash. She takes a job bartending, and then grabs a second one working the early shift at a bakery. The only problem is that her two shifts run back-to-back, and she can’t get all the way across New York City in time. If she shows up late to the bakery one more time, she’ll be fired.
So when Jean’s friend Iggy introduces her to shortcuts, she’s thrilled . . . and in awe. The shortcuts are doors, all throughout NYC, that open to an entirely different place in the city. No one knows how they work or how they got there, but they do know two rules: you can only use the doors at night, and you can only go through them one way. You must never turn around and go back through the door you came through. Soon,
Jean is handling her two jobs perfectly, and things finally seem to be shaping up for her. But then Iggy goes missing, and she’s pretty sure he’s lost in the doors somewhere. Now she needs to find him, and time is running out, but she’s losing control of herself too, the more she uses the shortcuts. She knows they’re linked to her old job somehow, and as she digs into her former boss’s research, she realizes there was a lot she didn’t know about the doctor’s past experiments and studies. Now more than ever, Jean is determined to figure out how the doors work and where Iggy has gone.
Who Will Like It
If you’re interested in sci-fi and not sure where to start, this is a great introduction to the genre. It will ease you in with a mostly contemporary, realistic plot — just with a twist. While there isn’t a ton of character development with side characters, focusing mostly on Jean and her personal history, the plot is captivating as you try to puzzle out the history of the doors along with Jean.
It’s also a play on the portal fantasy, where characters find a magic door that takes them somewhere else. In this case, literal doors. A portal fantasy series I absolutely love is the Wayward Children series, following children who have gone through magical doors and their lives after their fantasy adventure.
Misc.
When I heard this year was the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Spiderwick Chronicles, I remembered how much I adored this series as a kid. I was about 9 or 10 when I read them, and those memories made me check the series out from the library as an adult. I’ve been making my way through the 5 books and having a blast reliving some of that kid book magic. A more recent series that reminds me a lot of the Spiderwicks that I love is Kate Milford’s Greenglass House series, which I reviewed way back several winters ago. Is there a series you loved as a kid you’d like to reread today?
More Books
Can’t get enough, or looking for a different recommendation? Browse the archives, or check out some popular past recommendations:
Read about a lawyer fighting against an unfair justice system
Read a thriller about a polygamist, his wives, and their secret pasts
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Content warnings include loss of parents (flashbacks), fatal car accident and many instances of flashbacks and anxiety surrounding cars, domestic and emotional abuse (flashbacks), discussions of psychological and therapy-based experiments, mild elder abuse (no harm, but elder is locked away in long-term care and everyone in his life is told he is no longer coherent or able to see visitors).