What is A Midsummer's Nightmare about?
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.
What did I think about A Midsummer's Nightmare?
I accidentally stumbled across A Midsummer's Nightmare when searching Amazon and Goodreads for a good book. I have read so many books now that I struggle to find something to read that I actually really enjoy. As a result of reading a lot of 'OK' books, my Amazon recommendations that I rely so heavily upon has been setting me astray from the great books out there. Anyway, after searching through the two sites I found A Midsummer's Nightmare which seemed promising from the blurb and it really lived up to my expectations! Actually it surpassed my expections! I really really loved it, as I am sure you can understand by the five star rating I gave it!God this book was really great! The story line wasn't completely original or anything like that (which I don't really expect). I mean there is only SO many storylines that can be written to fit in the genre. Due to this I have found that a lot of books go way over the top, and that makes the story less realistic and harder to connect with the characters in the book. I digress, back to my review of the book! What makes this book so special is not the story line its self, but they characters and the way that the book is written that really captivates you and compels you to want more and more.
I cried so many times reading this book, I don't know if that is just because I can really relate to Whitley's situation (not that I have fallen in love with my step brother, that would be weird cause they are younger than me!). My parents got divorced before I was born so I didn't really know any different than having seperate parents. I was very lucky as my step dad was great and I saw him as my dad, as my dad was absent most of my life and didn't really have much contact with him while I was growing up. Over the years I have had occasional visits with my dad, and at the moment we are trying to reconnect after him being absent from my life for most of my life. However, it is hard because he has remarried and has a daughter, and it is difficult seeing that family dynamic that they have that I never got to have with him. Do not take this as a pity story because I really do love my step mom, she is great and I don't remember a time that she hasn't been in my life (and I am 24, so they have been together for a long time!). And my little sister is great! I love her very much and she is cute as a button and she makes you want to give her anything she wants because she has this great personality and infectious happiness. When I say anything she wants, I mean within reason, she is not spoiled or anything, she is a very happy go lucky kind of girl, a lot like Bailey in A Midsummer's Nightmare. When I visit sometimes I feel like I am on the outside looking in. Like I am reading a book or watching a movie and I am not really there, as if my reality is fiction. I think that causes a disconnect with me and my father and has possibly contributed to the way our relationship is now and has been for so many years. Do not get me wrong, my father is not a bad dad or anything like that, I think he struggles with long distance parenting (seeing as I live on a different continent, it can be quite difficult) and I think that it helps that I am an 'adult' now so he doesn't have to be strict and impose rules on me. Now when I visit it is a lot more relaxing and fun and slowly but surely we are building a relationship.
Like Whitley, I am stubborn. I am not good with communicating my feelings with people and can sit around with something for days, months or even years without telling people what or how I feel. People in my family can continue on with their lives without even knowing that I am struggling with emotions and feeling, because on the outside I look and act (well I think I do) as if nothing is wrong. To me (and this is also where I am very similar to Whitley's character) crying in front of others is a weaknesses and can cause people to pity you and therefore I do not like to do it, this further makes me bottle everything up inside of me. Like the saying, 'what comes up, must come down' or apt, what goes in, must come out. Eventually I explode and that can derail me for days at a time and I shut myself off from the world, separate myself from reality. Like Whitley, I do not like being vulnerable, and this makes dealing with situations with my dad a lot more difficult to resolve. How can someone fix something if they do not know it is broken? Not that I am broken, just got a dew dings and dents (like Whitley).
For this reason, I really loved Nathan's character. He really is a great guy (sadly he is not real). Anyway, he really pushes Whitley to talk to her father and repair their broken relationship. As a stubborn teenager myself, can I just say it is not easy to be open up to people and be vulnerable, and I have been told my whole life by people in my family 'if you want a relationship with your father, you have to push for it'. At the time, I was a firm believer, and to some extent still believe this, that the parent needs to be the one making the effort to build and maintain a relationship with their children, at the end of the day we are children, you are the adult. However as I got older I realised that someone has to make the first move, whether that is through increasing communication, or like me, staying in my dad's house instead of my older sisters when I went to visit. This is what Nathan pushes Whitley to finely understand and makes his character really endearing.
Like Sylvia, Whitley's future step mom, my step mom was the bridge between my father and me. She was the one that would discipline me when I visited my dad's house. She was the one that I could talk to about talk to about things that were going on in my life. She was the one that I went shopping with, and spent most of the time with. Unlike Whitley's situation, I did not suddenly gain a step mom and two step siblings at the age of 18, as Sam (my step mom) has been with my dad since as long as I can remember, so it was more natural than Whitley's situation. However I did gain (another) step dad and three step siblings at the age of 18 on my mothers side (my family tree is so complex, true modern family), so I really have had a similar experience to that of Whitley. At this point I already had a step dad and step mom as well as a couple half siblings and a step sister, so I think I had a handle on the whole rapid family expansion thing by this point, so for me it wasn't so stressful.
Over the years I have learned that gaining a step family adds value to a family, not devalues my position within it, much like Whitley's situation in A Midsummer's Nightmare. In addition, me gaining step parents, especially step dads, helped me to have a more normal upbringing (as weird as that may seem) as I got to grow up in a home where my 'parents' were with the people that made them happiest, and didn't just stay together for the kids. Even though it may hurt the kids initially when a family breaks up, in the long run it is more damaging to bring up children in a home where their parents are unhappy. Furthermore, by gaining new parents I was able to have a father in the house growing up. From the age of four til twelve I had lived with my first step dad and that allowed me to have a dad that I got to cuddle up with on the sofa, or sit on his lap, or looked after me when I was sick. And then when I was 18 my mom started dating my second (and hopefully final) step dad. Scott (step daddy number two) was a little bit different from my first step dad, maybe it is because I am not a 'little' girl anymore, but I also think he is not the cuddly daddy type either so our relationship is a bit different. There is more of a camaraderie esque type of relationship between us but I still push the boundaries sometimes and cuddle with him on the sofa when I make him watch Disney movies with me or call him dad (mostly when I want something). Most people think I am messing around when I do it as they think I just want something from them, but the truth is no matter how old I get, I will always be a little girl who needs a daddy.
Once this was all written down, I considered deleting this and writing a simpler review that was less personal, as you will now know, I do not like to share my real emotions and feelings. And putting it out there on the internet is not a small scale share session! The whole review may not even be read fully, however, I decided that this was the best way for me to explain why I loved A Midsummer's Nightmare so much, was to explain why I felt so connected with the story. And that is all a result of Kody Keplinger's amazing writing ability! I cried so many times as the story unfolded, and for me that is what makes a good book! Not crying, I don't need to cry for the book to be good, I just need to feel some emotion and connection with the characters. The story line does not need to be completely original or over the top dramatic, sometimes simple really is better! So everyone read this book, it is BRILLIANT!
