Review of A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

 ★★★★★

A Midsummer's Nightmare

By: Kody Keplinger

Review by: Kimberly Ho

Publisher: Poppy

Pages: 304

Star Rating: ★★★★★/ Go out and buy it now.

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.

"But as the clock ticked the hours past and Dad still didn't come up the stairs to see me, I really wished that I didn't know the truth."

You've read The DUFF, you've read Shut Out, now it's time for A Midsummer's Nightmare to take the stage! (Wow, that sounded lame.)

I absolutely adored this book. It was up there with Kody Keplinger's debut, and excels the level of Shut Out. I loved everything.

But I half expected to be disappointed with A Midsummer's Nightmare, just as I sort of was with Shut Out. I'd thought I'd dislike Whitley's cynical personality as I did Lissa's. Don't get me wrong, Shut Out was good, but it was too much like the author's previous work. I wanted something more. It seems like that's always too much to ask for.

But A Midsummer's Nightmare was that more. Whitley always had a good retort and that sarcastic sense of humor that I loved in Bianca. And speaking of Bianca, she and Wesley are back! But honestly, the moment Wesley made a reappearence, nothing clicked. I thought he was just another character with the same name and, as I'm sure Whitley can testify, the same figure that can make girls swoon. That's how perfectly everything fit. I didn't feel their comeback was out of place in the slightest, it felt they were just another part, a very good part, of the story. And for fans of The DUFF, didn't our beloved characters grow so much?

However, what I think made me connect with Whitley on a whole other level was the way this story was set up. Like Bianca, like Lissa, Whitley was dealing with the aftermath of a painful event and situation. But it wasn't just all talk and no show with Whitley's story, we got to experience it first-handed alongside Whitley herself as she learns that nothing is ever as it seems. I think this is a book that can, and will, appeal to teens and adults alike. Kody Keplinger sure doesn't shy away from any topic at all.

And for a idea of how I looked while reading:



I think that just about does it nicely. But seriously.

Buy. This. Now.

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Review also found at: Goodreads

Contact me at: kimberlyho75@yahoo.com