Title: A Midsummer's NightmareAuthor: Kody KeplingerPages: 304
Publisher: Poppy
Genre: ContemporaryRelease: June 5th 2012
Buy the Book at: Book Depository /
Amazon 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.
Filled with authenticity and raw emotion, Whitley is Kody Keplinger's most compelling character to date: a cynical Holden Caulfield-esque girl you will wholly care about.
A Rich and Meaningful Read for Teenagers and Parents Alike
Kody Keplinger is one of my favorite contemporary authors and I really fell in love with her first novel
The Duff which is now one of my favorite contemporary reads. Then, I really enjoyed
Shut Out and I loved that it focused in very important teenage issues, yet I was still more in love with
The Duff. Now,
A Midsummer's Nightmare is a whole story to a whole new level.
Kody Keplinger's last novel my favorite of all of her books!This is probably Keplinger's most complex and rich story. I love how thoughtful and emotionally deep this book is. A Midsummer's Nightmare deals with a topic that many children/teenagers (myself included) and parents deal/dealt with: parent's divorce plus the whole lot of consequences and changes that this event brings into children's and parents' life (for better or worst, or both) In addition, I loved to see how Kody Keplinger's writing has become so consistent. Her character, for example, are full of details that enrich their personalities (Specially Wit who is the main character). I feel like in each of Kody Keplinger's books, her characters have become more and more alive and I dare to say that in A Midsummer's Nightmare, the characters really stand out of the pages. In this novel, the characters are really strong and each one of them have a solid presence and opinion towards the situation they are all facing (second marriage, two families merging into one, etc). I think that this is actually one of the strongest points of the novel. Each character deliver an insightful perspective of what people can go through when they face this kind of situation.
Although Kody Keplinger's story is fiction, I'd like to believe that A Midsummer's Nightmare could actually really happen to someone. It is a beautiful and powerful story where people learn from mistakes and put effort to become a better person. I was so delighted to see how a story that could easily turn into something pessimistic, ended up turning into something full of hope and good examples. I know there might be some people that will think that A Midsummer's Nightmare may not be realistic enough or that everything solves too perfectly. However, this is fiction, and it is in fiction where we can let ourselves dream about the best stories with the best outcomes. Isn't that the magic of books after all?
Filled with themes such as parenthood, family issues, sense of belonging and lack of attention, this book is (for me) Keplinger's most consistent novel so far. Life is a rollercoaster that is filled with many of the ups and downs that Kody Keplinger so perfectly illustrated on this novel. A Midsummer's Nightmare is definitely a rich and meaningful read for teenagers and parents alike.
★Book received from Hachette Book Group Canada for review ~ Thank you so much!★
