review; a midsummer’s nightmare
A Midsummer’s Nightmare
by Kody Keplinger
Whitley Johnson’s dream summer with her divorcé dad has turned into a nightmare. She’s just met his new fiancée and her kids. The fiancée’s son? Whitley’s one-night stand from graduation night. Just freakin’ great.
Worse, she totally doesn’t fit in with her dad’s perfect new country-club family. So Whitley acts out. She parties. Hard. So hard she doesn’t even notice the good things right under her nose: a sweet little future stepsister who is just about the only person she’s ever liked, a best friend (even though Whitley swears she doesn’t “do” friends), and a smoking-hot guy who isn’t her stepbrother…at least, not yet. It will take all three of them to help Whitley get through her anger and begin to put the pieces of her family together.
Review:
Gah, honestly, I adore self-destructive characters so much. But they have to be redeemable, and Whitley? Self-destructive, abrasive, walled off from the world Whitley? So redeemable. There are glimpses of this much sweeter and kinder girl under the bitch she tends to be.
Whitley’s loneliness and brokenness is palpable throughout the novel, and so painful to read. But watching her slowly open up to Bailey, who is adorable, Harrison, who I want to be my best friend – and to Nathan, who is sweet though he has his asshole moments – was a treat.
Her relationship with her parents might never be what she wishes, but Whitley has Nathan and Bailey and Harrison – and even Sylvia, who I adored so much, she is the ideal mom-figure I think – and she is not alone.
I just really, really adored this book, and the way Whitley begins her journey to healing. She is not done, not by a long way, and it is acknowledged, but this chapter of her story is closed. And it was wonderfully written.
Ara
I’m Ara, a Southeast Asian writer who someday hopes to have published a novel, and who is currently losing herself in the worlds created by others. I love books and food and television and blogging and I get distracted and sidetracked easily.
2 Comments
Olivia-Savannah
This one makes me think of a book I enjoyed surprisingly called Dangerous Lies by Becca Fitzpatrick – you might enjoy that one if you liked this! I agree with you. I don’t mind self-destructive characters as long as they have some sort of redeemable quality or a good reason for how they became that way!
Ara
I’ll have to check that out! Thank you!