Review: A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

It's always harder to write positive reviews and even harder to write reviews for books you adore. Or it could be that it's just hard for me, I guess it's easy for me to be a sarcastic bitch but being nice? Not so much.

But.. here goes:

I loved this book.

There's something about Keplinger and her ability to create characters that aren't always very likable at first but eventually, lovable and always, realistic. The latest main character in Keplinger's novels is by far the most damaged of all three characters, there's a darkness and mistrust in Whitley's voice that makes it impossible for the reader not to care about her.

The novel begins with Whitley waking up after her graduation party, in a bed with a guy who she's slept with, whom she's never met before. She then tries to sneak out, fails and then refuses to give the guy her number. Ouch.

I can't say I was liking Whitley very much at this point but as the novel progressed and we learnt of Whitley's home life which caused her sudden change from good girl to damaged wild child, there was a whole lot more meaning and significance as to how Whitley acted and lived.

Whitley doesn't really give much thought to her one night stand again until she goes to stay with her dad for her last summer 'vacation' (it's really strange for me to say 'vacation', vaaacation, sorry, British'n'all*)  before college and she finds out her dad, surprisingly, has a fiance who has two children, Bailey and Nathan...Nathan being her one night stand from graduation night. (Daaammnn..)

There's a whole lot of partying and Keplinger addresses a lot of relatable teenage issues including alcohol, peer pressure, fitting in in school, rape, divorced parents. It's usually really tough for authors to pull off addressing a couple of these issues but Keplinger is able to bring to light these issues, and a lot more, wholly while still producing a read that is exciting and doesn't fail to make me grin like an idiot.

The characters, including Whitley, are highly enjoyable to read about. My favourite would probably be Harrison, Whitley's best friend, who I didn't actually remember was in The Duff until about 3/4 way through A Midsummer's Nightmare! Speaking of The Duff, Wesley and Bianca have a very small cameo which, I am very ashamed to say, didn't actually recognise until I realised Harrison was in The Duff as well.. I went and re read their part - so cute.

Overall, there wasn't much I didn't really like about A Midsummer's Nightmare.. yes, things did seem to end a little too conveniently at the end but I didn't really mind, I was too happy with the rest of the book.

(*On the subject of being British: Whitley says a couple of times in the beginning of the novel that she's going to be studying at 'UK' which I, stupidly, assumed meant 'United Kingdom' (I know, it doesn't even grammatically work) ... it wasn't until Whitley says 'University of Kentucky' instead of 'UK' that I realised I was being... well, you know... ah! United Kingdom? Seriously? What is with my brain?)

Music choice: My music choice for this fabulous treasure is Wonder Wall by Oasis.. things get better if you try and save yourself...

itunes link: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/whats-the-story-morning-glory/id78839560