A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

12:00 AM by Cierra 2 Comments A ⁺ a ^-

A Midsummer's Nightmare

Author: Kody Keplinger

Release Date: June 5, 2012

Publisher: Poppy

Summary (Goodreads):

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.

My Thoughts:

FYI, this review has a wee bit of spoiler in it...

This story starts in one of the most awkward places someone can be, after waking up with a raging hangover. In bed, with some random guy beside you, and you don't even know their name. Like I said before, awkward. Whitley hurried and left, so that the awkwardness-b-gone.

We know that she has just graduated from high school, and that she's packing up to go spend her last summer before going off to college (UK to be exact) with her Dad. On the ride there, he lets slip that he moved from her favorite place-- his condo-- into a house, more specifically in the suburbs. And he hadn't even told her about it beforehand.

Then, she gets another surprise. Her father now has a fiancee... Someone that Whitley didn't even know that he was dating. And then, another another surprise (yes, I put 'another' twice). Sylvia (his fiancee) has kids. And just who is her kids? Well, one of them just so happen to be the no-name guy Whitley found herself next to that hungover morning-- Nathan. Awkward, again.

Throughout this book, Whitley tries to figure out herself, family, her maybe-almost feelings about her soon-to-be stepbrother. Not to mention, getting ready for college and trying to figure out what she should major in in college.

So, I really loved this book. It was sort of unusual because it was in the girl who's scorned by everybody by supposedly being 'easy'. I think we all know those girls who have the really bad rumors hanging over their head about being with every guy, and I think everybody knows the girls who have those rumors, but never did any of it. That's how Whitley is. She has the nasty rumors (in the suburbs, at least), although she'd pretty much done only a couple for make out sessions.

Well, anyway, I liked Whitley's character. She was sassy. And I loved that. She wasn't like some main characters/heroins who don't know how to stand up to people, or aren't sarcastic at all. And, she knew her music. And fashion. And, she ended up having a gay best friend (number one teen girl dream).

The words in this story flowed, and it actually sounded like something that teenagers would say. You know, not all stiff and without contractions, and with words like 'cannot'. When stories are written that well, it fills more relatable to me, as a teenager. None of my friends walk around saying, "I cannot figure out this math problem!"... It's just kind of odd in our society nowadays.

Now, back to the book, I'm giving it five hearts, because it got to the plot in a reasonable amount of time, the words flowed, the descriptions were great, and I happened to finish this book really fast, which is a sign that I was loving the book.