What We Saw At Night by Jaquelyn Mitchard: A review

What We Saw At Night is a thriller/mystery about three teens who have a rare allergy to the sun and most other light as well called Xeroderma Pigmentosum.  These teens, Juliet the daredevil, Rob the sweet clueless guy, and Allie the narrator of the story, explore their town at night while everyone else is sleeping, since it’s the only safe time they can be outside.  All three are surprisingly athletic, with Juliet being a previous ski star.  One night they learn to do a new trick, Parkour, which is jumping and gymnastics on public buildings with no safety nets.  It’s dangerous and thrilling.  They begin to do Parkour all over town at night and at one apartment they see something they shouldn’t.  They see a man with a very distinctive white blonde stripe in his hair murdering a young girl, or at least Allie does.  The other two teens aren’t sure what they see.  In the beginning they try to pretend it didn’t happen and go on with their lives.  The truth of what she saw begins to eat away at Allie and starts to cause problems with her friendships.  One night Allie wants to make sure what she saw was real so she goes back to the same apartment and sees the same man and a different girl, also dead.  The man in the apartment sees Allie this time and begins to stalk Allie, almost hitting her with his car at one point.

What We Saw At Night is a very interesting read, not only because the characters are very unique but because the reader is kept on edge throughout the entire book. The author must have done her research into the sun allergy disease; it was very real and heartbreaking in places just from that angle of the story.   I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it to anyone who likes a mystery.    There isn’t a nice tidy ending and there will be a sequel.  I was a little aggravated with the ending, or lack of ending but it didn’t take away from the book itself.  I’m looking forward to the next book, I want to see where Allie ends up!