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.”

Review: Shut Out

Shut Out
By Kody Keplinger
Release Date: September 5, 2011

Product Description:
Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it's a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part, Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy's car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend's attention.

Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: she and the other players' girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won't get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don't count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. And Lissa never sees her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling, coming.

Inspired by Aristophanes' play Lysistrata, critically acclaimed author of The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) Kody Keplinger adds her own trademark humor in this fresh take on modern teenage romance, rivalry and sexuality.

Review:
Let me just start by saying that I will read anything by Kody Keplinger.  There is something about the way she writes and the characters she introduces to us.  They are real and believable, and sometimes sarcastic and tough and I love that.  In this book we meet Lissa who is currently going out with Randy (captain of the football team) who has a rivalry with the soccer team.  Of course the girls think this rivalry is ridiculous so Lissa organizes all the girlfriends together and they start a sex strike to end the rivalry.  But Lissa didn't expect to find a friend in Cash, well really more than a friend.  When her and Randy broke up, her and Cash made out once but she never heard from him again.  Now they are working together and the feelings are coming back.  When Cash decides to organize all the boys together to try and teach the girls a lesson in this sex strike it gets even more complicated.  But in the end it's more of a rivalry between Lissa and Cash.  This was a really great quick and easy read.  Even though it's not as good as "Duff" Kody's first book, it's still just as good and you should check it out.  I still got butterflies when Cash and Lissa would share a special moment together.

Have you read this book, would love to know what your thoughts are on it?
 

Tuesday Teaser

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: •Grab your current read •Open to a random page •Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) •Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This weeks teaser is:

Shut Out
By Kody Keplinger

"This is ethical," I said, hoping to get them back on track. "We're not really using sex as a weapon - we're just choosing not to partake until the rivalry ends. We're not manipulating them or anything. We're ... boycotting"

I loved reading Kody Keplinger's first book, that I just knew I had to read her next one. So far so good.