Review: A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

Tags: YA, contemporary, family, romance

Summary

Whitley Johnson’s post-high-school-graduation summer with her dad takes a turn for the much worse when he drops the shocker that he is getting married…to a woman with two teenage children. On top of that, her future stepbrother was the guy she hooked up with at a graduation party, believing that it could be someone she would never see again. How was she supposed to know that three days later he’d be living right across the hall from her?
There is no way Whitley will have a good time this summer. Unless the good new people of her life manage to break through her front and show her the good things she has… 


Review


After a (subjective) stumble with Shut Out, Kody Keplinger and her relatable, snappy, and thoroughly odern characters are back on track with the impressive A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE, a short but fulfilling book full of the swift pace and dialogue, realistic emotions, and charged moments that made readers fans of her writing in the first place.


A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE has a premise that could be the stuff of soap operas: hooking up with your soon-to-be stepbrother?? Gasp!! But Kody Keplinger pulls off the story without a hitch, without it rolling into the land of melodrama. While perhaps not everyone is like Whitley, we can certainly relate to her frustration over surprises being sprung on her, the deep hurt she carries over her changing relationships with people in her life. Though Whitley might be brasher, sexier, and sassier than we’ll ever be, she never becomes a caricature, and I was firmly rooting for Whitley the whole time.


If you liked The Duff (never mind what you felt about Shut Out), then do for your enjoyment pick up A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHTMARE and bask in the post-reading glow of having immersed yourself in a smart contemporary YA drama.


Similar Authors
Miranda Kenneally
Ann Brashares
Kate Brian


Cover discussion: I'm keeping my mouth shut. Next.


Poppy / June 5, 2012 / Hardcover / 305pp. / $17.99


e-galley received from publisher and NetGalley. Thank you!

Author Interview with Kody Keplinger!

I had the fortune of being asked to be on a mini-blog tour for debut author Kody Keplinger, the 19-year-old wunderkind who wrote The DUFF, a sexy contemporary novel that I loved. Kody has graciously agreed to answer a few questions, which is SO SUPER COOL. Read on, fellow or soon-to-be adoring fans, to learn a bit more about Kody and The DUFF!

1. Some people have expressed concerns that the cover model is too pretty to be Bianca. However, I like the fact that being a Duff is very subjective, so that Bianca could actually be pretty in her own way. Who might play Bianca in a movie version of your book? Who would play Wesley?

When I started writing the book, I deliberately left many facts about Bianca’s appearance out because I wanted every girl to have their own image of how “fat” or “ugly” – or, like you said, perhaps even pretty – Bianca really is. I wanted every girl to imagine themselves as Bianca.

That said, I do definitely have images of how Bianca might be cast. My instinct is automatically Ellen Page. She really captures the look I imagined, especially in Juno. But I also think that Mae Whitman would be a good choice.

As for Wesley . . . that’s much harder. I’d say a combo between Steven Strait and Ed Westwick. But I also think Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights) has the look down.

2. What's the most memorable thing that someone has said to you after reading THE DUFF?

Haha. OH, there have been a few memorable comments. However, an online friend of mine, Dan Krokos (yeah, I’m dropping his name because he’s said this PUBLICLY too) told me that Wesley made him question his sexuality because he was so in love with him. To me, having a male say that, was a HUGE compliment. I kind of wanted it as a blurb on the back of the book!

3. You are now a college student at Ithaca. Do your college friends know that you're a published author? What are some reactions that classmates (or professors) have when they find out you've published a book?

Most of my friends and teachers do know about THE DUFF being published. Most are pretty excited but don’t make a huge deal out of it because they don’t want to embarrass me. But they’ve all be so supportive and helpful. One of my professors this semester has already talked to the bookstore on campus about setting up a display since I’m still a student. So most people are really cool about it.

4. What are three things you can't live without?

My laptop, my collection of converse tennis shoes, and my books.

5. THE DUFF contains a lot of sex, something that conservative readers might have a problem with. The last week of September also happens to be Banned Books Week. What would you say to readers who wish to challenge the sexual explicitness in your novel?

As a young reader, I was very much inspired by Judy Blume because she told the truth. She talked about things that I was going through and made me realize that I wasn’t so abnormal. I didn’t know then that she was considered controversial, and I think that she is the biggest reason I write the way I do.

I set out to write an honest book. The honest truth is, some teenagers have sex. Not all of them do – believe me, I know, because I didn’t in high school – but some teenagers do. Bianca happens to be one of those teenagers, and her sexual experience plays a big part of her journey to accepting her body image. I did not write the sex scenes just to be “edgy” and I don’t think that they are that explicit. I just wanted to write the truth.

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HOORAY for telling the truth in YA lit! Thanks so much, Kody, for stopping by my blog today! If you haven't yet checked out THE DUFF yet... uh, what are you waiting for? It was one of the boldest and sexiest books I've read this year.

Review: The DUFF by Kody Keplinger

Tags: young adult, sex, friendship

Summary

When the world’s greatest womanizing jerk, Wesley Rush, calls cynical Bianca Piper the Duff (designated ugly fat friend), the term haunts her day and night. Next to her gorgeous best friends, she is a nobody. Add to that her parents’ crumbling marriage, and Bianca desperately needs something to distract her.

So she kisses Wesley. And then they continue hooking up.

Bianca wants to keep this a strictly noncommittal physical thing, but nothing prepares her for what happens next: the emotional connection she never in a million years wanted to make with Wesley.

Review

Enter The Book for the new generation of teens: Kody Keplinger’s strikingly smart debut THE DUFF. Conservative and prudish adults will most definitely try to ban this book, but teenagers will snatch this sexy and edgy debut right up for its relatable, modern protagonist and spot-on dialogue.

Fans of “traditional,” brushed-up YA literature beware: you are not going to like Bianca. She is loud, angry, spiteful, cynical…and as a result, she will be welcomed with loving arms by today’s teenagers. Bianca is what’s missing in literature and probably desperately sought after by teens, a sort of Holden Caulfield for this generation. She has no illusions about “true luv” teen romance; instead, her concerns are grounded in the reality of family tensions, arguments with friends, and wavering self-esteem.

While Bianca’s aggression and cynicism may grate on many readers’ sensitivities (including, occasionally, mine), I was still able to see where she was coming from. We need to dispense with our illusion of teen girls as virginal, hopelessly romantic, and sweet-sixteen-and-never-been-kissed, because the truth is that there are a lot more girls out there like Bianca than we care to admit, and they will jump at this relatable book.

The other characters in THE DUFF are nicely three-dimensional too, despite the fact that their problems occasionally seem a little too convenient and piled-on for plot’s sake. Bianca’s feisty hot-and-cold relationship with Wesley, in particular, is smoldering. Their initial coming together was a bit rough—I had some trouble believing that something like this would happen—but once they got going, boy, did they get going. And not just in sexual terms, either (though there is plenty of that, so if you’re uncomfortable with sex in literature, go somewhere else). Gone is the age-old idea that teen romance should consist of sweet heroines and reformed bad-boy love interests. In THE DUFF, Bianca and Wesley are constantly at odds with one another, and Bianca is not afraid to yell at him and say what she thinks. Even if this type of romance is not exactly the best model (though neither is the passive female/bad-boy male one), it makes for one heck of an exciting read.

THE DUFF reminds me of why romantic “screwball” comedies can be so great: for the characters’ chemistry and the sharp dialogue. It’s wish fulfillment to an extent (how I sometimes wish I could get away with Bianca’s cynicism and attract a jerk-turned-sweetie like Wesley), but it’s also highly relatable, and I have no doubt that there will be a legion of girls out there who can see parts of themselves in Bianca. I can’t wait to see what Kody Keplinger has for us next!

Writing: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 5/5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5


Cover discussion: 4 out of 5 - I like it a decent amount. It's big, it's bold, and it's in your face. There have been complaints that the Bianca model on the cover is too pretty to be the DUFF, but the thing with being the DUFF is that everyone feels like the DUFF every once in a while, so it's not like Bianca is supposed to be exceptionally hideous or anything. She is, in fact, an average girl with average insecurities about her looks.

Poppy / Sept. 7, 2010 / Hardcover / 288pp. / $16.99

ARC received at the Teen Author Carnival in May!