Review: A Midsummer's Nightmare

A Midsummer's Nightmare
By: Kody Keplinger
Release Date: June 5, 2012

Description:
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
 
Review:
There are no words that can begin to express how much I absolutely loved this new book by Kody Keplinger.  There is something special about her and her writing, I think I would read the phone book if she wrote it, you know.  This book was amazing and I can't wait to share it with anyone who will listen.  The characters in her books are always so real and raw, I can relate to each and everyone of them and always get attached.  Hers are some of the best contemporary books I've ever read, much praise for her and I can't wait to read her next book Goldfish which comes out next year, obviously not soon enough.
 
We immediately meet Whitley after a drunken night, hungover and in bed with someone she can't remember his name.  She gently lets him down saying that she will not give him her number because really they don't ever need to see each other again.  This sets off the book and I'm automatically hooked. 
 
Her parents are divorced but during the summer she spends time with her father, they hang out drink, grill just like friends.  She looks forward to these summers and this is the last one before she starts college.  In her mind this will be epic, well it was but not in the way she expected.  Turns out her dad is about to get married, his fiance has two kids, and yup you've guessed it one of the kids is the guy she hooked up with.  Oh the trouble this will bring about everyone. Whitley tries very hard to dislike everyone but eventually they break her down and begin to feel as if they are more family then her own family is.
 
There are so many different relationships described throughout this book and all are so very different.  There is the relationship between Whitley and her mother, where she doesn't seem to care but still extremely hurt about her husband leaving her.  Whitley and her dad, he doesnt' know how to be  father with her anymore, he's not sure he ever did.  Whitley and Sylvia where she tries so hard to get Whitley to like her.  Then there's Bailey the soon to be stepsister who I think Whitley would do anything for.  Harrison, the new gay best friend, Whitley has never had a friend before, ever, so this is all new to her.  And last but not lease Nathan, the one night stand turned soon to be step brother. 
 
The different dynamic relationships in this book alone are relateable to many people, there is at least one relationship in this book that you have to feel a pull towards and can relate to, it's inevitable.  Moving to a small town and being thrown a huge surprise as all of this is a lot for Whitley and the way she handles it at first is just her acting out of anger.  But by the end of the book she begins to discover who she is and what she needs to do to make all her mistakes right again.
 
This book again I can't say enough was amazing.  I literally finished it in one sitting and the book stayed on my mind all night that I had to write this asap.  If you haven't read it yet, you need to!  Seriously, go buy it!
 
Quotes:

Fun? Fun was not the word I would have chosen. Unbearable, awkward, torturous… Anything but fun. This was a nightmare.

..............

I guess I just needed someone or something to shake me up. You taught me a lesson, Whit. And sometimes I hate you for it, but… but I’m trying not to.

..............

“Screw nightmares. I was waking up.”