Review: A Mid-Summer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

Title: A Midsummer’s Nightmare

Author: Kody Keplinger

Publisher: Poppy

Publication Date: 6.5.2012

Pages: 304

Genre: Contemporary, Romance

Series: No (Companion to The D.U.F.F. and Shut Out)

Source: Finished copy from publisher

Rating: A-

Summary (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.

Review:

Kody Keplinger is one of those authors who I see wrote a new book, and I immediately snap it up. Since I read The D.U.F.F., her debut novel, over two years ago, I have been absolutely smitten with Keplinger. She could write a book about the secret lives of trash collectors and I would devour it. She’s that reliable of a great writer.

This is one of those books where I loved the book and most of the characters … but Whitley (our narrator and heroine) made me want to slap her repeatedly. At times I felt her grating personality just went too far. Yes, I get that the girl has issues she needed to work through (and does), but there were a couple parts where she just disgusted me with her cavalier attitude. It took me nearly half of the novel to find some sort of connection to her. Don’t get me wrong, by the end of the novel I loved her, but it took a bit to get there.

Nathan and Bailey were the stars of this for me, and I am desperately hoping Bailey gets her own novel because that girl was just so sweet and so awesome that I need more. Nathan was everything I pine for in a book boyfriend—loyal, understanding, and HOT.

Yes, I am a little shallow, but you know you like it, too!

A Mid-Summer’s Nightmare is a fantastic addition to the other novels she’s written—even drawing in two of my favorites from her first book. While these books aren’t a series, she does sometimes bring back old characters for a quick, non-invasive cameo as a shout-out to fans. Grab a Keplinger book (any of them in any order will suffice), and I promise you won’t be sorry.

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