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.
Kody Keplinger has done it again. She has written another amazing book that I have fallen in love with.
The main character in this book is a bit of a hot mess. She's always partying and drinking and hooking up with guys she barely knows. Her relationship with her mom is pretty much nonexistent, and she only sees her dad when she spends summers with him. Whitley doesn't have friends, because she thinks they're a waste of time, and she prefers to be a loner.
Despite all of this, Whitley is a really likable main character. I think most teenagers will be able to identify with her in a lot of ways. She has an unlimited supply of teen angst, and her dry and sarcastic sense of humor makes her really fun to read about. I was cracking up at so many of the things she said in this book.
When Whitley shows up at her dad's house for the summer, he's all "SURPRISE! THIS IS MY FIANCÉE AND HER CHILDREN AND OH BY THE WAY THEY'RE GOING TO LIVE WITH US!" And it's really awkward for Whitley because she's like "Oh great. That kid who is my future step-brother? I totally had a drunken one-night-stand with him the other night! Wonderful!"
It's such an interesting and complex storyline. Nothing is simple or easy and Whitley struggles to find the right way to interact with all the different characters. This book is all about Whitley's relationships with the people around her--her father, future stepmother, future stepsister, new friend Harrison, and of course, Nathan, the guy she slept with and is now supposed to be like her brother.
By the end of the novel, Whitley has evolved into someone completely different than the person she was in the beginning. She undergoes a transformation that changes her for the better, all during a summer that is supposed to be a total nightmare.
I think A Midsummer's Nightmare might be my favorite of Kody Keplinger's books so far. If you've read The Duff (which you totally should because it's awesome), you'll love the little cameo that Wesley and Bianca make at one point. (I was jumping up and down and freaking out because I was so excited to see two of my favorite characters again.) This is one of those books that I have become emotionally invested in, and I think it's the perfect read for an angst-ridden teenager like myself. :)
-Rachel
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