A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger - Reading Review

Synopsis from 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. 

A Midsummer's Nightmare on Goodreads

Visit the Author's Website

Rating - 4 out of 5 stars

Today I'm here to share my thoughts on the novel A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger. I'd heard people talking about this book a lot a few months ago, and I thought that I might want to read it after reading and enjoying The DUFF. This was a novel that I figured would be pretty character driven, based off of the synopsis and some of the reviews I'd seen, and it definitely is. I really enjoyed that aspect of the novel, since my favorite aspect of a good story is character development, so I thought that this story really expressed how Whitley changed throughout the novel. I gave A Midsummer's Nightmare 4 out of 5 Stars.

Firstly, this novel was one that I really enjoyed because it had a lot of depth without losing humor and the lighter moments as well. I think that the learning and character development was balanced well between deeper moments and issues as well as fun character interactions and banter, which was something I remembered enjoying while reading The DUFF. From the beginning, Whitley is upset and dealing with a lot in her life, but progresses a lot as the novel goes on. She's not perfect, and her character was written in a really unique way to me in that she has a very real voice, with being upfront about her mistakes and also in trying to do better. I really enjoyed reading about Whitley's character as the novel went on.

The family dynamic in this book is a big theme of the novel. Whitley is coming to terms with a lot of change and meeting all these new characters that the reader gets to know as well. I thought the other characters were interesting and I really appreciated how they were all unique and not flat. The family characters had an important role in the story and how they all get to know each other. And the ending was well written in my opinion. I think it really helped complete the story without making it feel cliche or overdone.

Overall, this is a great read. It's perfect for the summer time, as Whitley has just started her summer vacation when the novel opens. This is a story with a lot of character development and some flawed but real characters that I really enjoyed reading about.

If you liked The DUFF by Kody Keplinger and The Art of Lainey by Paula Stokes, you might like A Midsummer's Nightmare.

From the paper world,
V