Book Review: A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger

Author: Kody Keplinger
Series: N/A
Publisher: Poppy
Release Date: June 5th 2012
My Rating: 5 cups
Blurb (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.

I love Kody Keplinger's books. With each of her books that I read I'm becoming more and more convinced I want to read every book she's ever published and every book she'll publish in the future.

The thing that I loved most about this book is that it was easy to understand Whitley. I am one of the lucky people that grew up with both parents, so I don't know firsthand the struggles that a child with divorced parents go through. I do have a glimpse into that drama through friends and one of my parents who came from divorced parents. Even so, Whitley's behavior was a bit understandable. I was so sad to see that Whitley's mom kept complaining about her ex-husband. I kept hoping that this woman, this ADULT woman would realize the damage she was doing to her daughter.

Whitley's dad isn't a role model either. She sees him as someone who can do no wrong and while I understand putting your dad on a pedestal, I had issues with how he treated this situation. He felt more like a buddy than a father to me and that didn't seem to help things.

I also found it easy to understand why Whitley had trouble accepting her dad's future wife. It felt like she was the kind of mother Whitley wished her own mom was. And it really is difficult accepting a stranger into that role.

Nathan is like a breath of fresh air. I liked the contrast between the two of them, how he tried to see past the anger and see the real Whitley. I really liked him. I also adored his little sister. I can only hope that we'll get a story for her in the future.

Wednesday Chatter #8: Trusting The Author

Wednesday Chatter is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books where we'll be talking about anything and everything related to books and reading. Click here if you want to see what we talked about in the previous weeks.


WARNING: Some bad words might be used in the following post. Don't say I didn't warn you!

 

Hey there, fellow book lovers! This week we had a brutal heatwave in my neck of the woods. Because of that I wasn't able to post, because my laptop is so old, it overheats in less than 20 minutes and shuts down. And since I'm still working on that blasted thesis, I don't have that much free time during the evening *pouts* So I decided to write this discussion post, which I've been sitting on for a few weeks now.

Let's talk about trusting the author, shall we?

For me, I need to trust the author. If it's an author that I'm familiar with and whose other books I've read (or at least a few of his/her books) then I know that the story that I'm going to read will give me something. It doesn't matter if it's heartbreak, or love, or a lesson that I can apply in real life, or a good laugh, or just a few hours of fun. I just know that the book will be if not great, then at least a pleasant read. Trust comes in when I'm deciding to pick up a book. I trust that no matter what happens in the book, it will be explained in the story and that it will make sense eventually. If you love reading series, then you know that sometimes cliffhangers appear, or sometimes you get more questions than answers from a book. But the big things that happen with the main characters will make sense in that book. If it's an author that I don't know, then I have to trust that the book will give me all those feelings that I was talking about, as well as the meaning, the reasoning behind something happening.

But I also need to trust the author when he/she says I'm going to read about x, y and z. It's not as if I want to pick up a romance book and end up with a horror story. Or I want to read an autobiography and instead I end up actually reading about the latest advancements in technology. I want the book to be about whatever it is that the blurb says it will be about. And I must trust the author to deliver.

Breaking that trust isn't something that happens often, or at least not with me. It takes a lot for me to say that I've lost trust in an author. And when it does happen, my heart breaks. Because it usually happens with authors that I've been reading for years. I'm not having high standards, by any means. I can understand an average book from an author I love. I can even accept a less than average book. It's not about quantity in this case. It's about content. I don't care if I'm reading a non-fiction essay of 5 pages or a mammoth of a fiction book of 700+ pages. I care, in this case, about what is in those pages. Losing trust in an author sucks, because it feels like breaking up with someone. Kill the main character if you must, but make sure it's for the right reasons. Because that's how the story goes. But not because you feel bored.

I always hate it when in TV shows (*coughs* Grey's Anatomy *coughs*) every single time an actor wants to quit they kill his/her character. Why can't they just write that character off? (Like they did for Cristina Yang!!) It makes me lose the trust in that TV show. I can't trust it anymore, not because I'm stupid and think that death doesn't happen, but because sometimes it serves no purpose aside from advancing a story in a bad way. It kinda shows that "hey, we have no more ideas, how 'bout we kill someone, make some tension around here?!". And even then, I kinda get it. Most TV shows get around 40 minutes of TV time, one show per week, maybe even two weeks, with tons of breaks from holidays and stuff and, in general, roughly 23 episodes per season. If they're lucky to have a full season. They don't have space. But they do have space in books. That right there, is probably why I fell in love with reading, because books have as much space as an author wants, whereas TV shows don't. So I get that TV shows make up stories as they go, because really, they need viewers. I expect more than that in books. I even want more than that in books. That's why I need to trust the author.

What about you? How much do you have to trust the author when deciding to read a book? Not only that, but with authors that you already know and have read their books before, how much does trust count when you pick up their next book? More importantly, what does it take for you to lose that trust?

 

Obsessed With Covers #22: Forget Tomorrow, Forest of Ruin,Every Heart a Doorway

Y'all know how much I love a pretty cover. I think about...40% of the books that end up on my shelves (be they physical or digital) do so because of the covers. Call me shallow but you have to admit that a pretty, shiny cover will catch your eye faster than a dull, boring one. Two, simple rules that I'll follow:

• 1, 2 or 3 (no more than 3, though) covers per week;
• books should be new-ish; no more than 2 years old.

Oh, before I share the covers that made me drool or want to stare at them for hours and hours, I have to say something. This is a semi-original idea. Why semi? Because almost every book blogger has something similar. The only thing I came up with was the title. If by any chance there's another blogger with a similar feature with the same title, I assure you I'm not stealing your idea. I'm just THAT bad with titles. Believe me, I'd love to be smarter and have a witty name for this feature, but I don't. So, no copyright infringement/theft/steal or anything of the sort was desired. All I can say is sorry :P

Hey guys! How is this wonderful July treating you? I am in the middle of Hell's main oven, it seems. The heatwave made my poor, old laptop overheat so many times in the last two weeks, I've decided to use it only when I had to. Poor thing.

Anyway, While I'm taking advantage of a little break from the heat, I wanted to share some really beautiful covers I've seen lately.

I love birds. There's something about them that I just adore. So it's no wonder this cover drew my attention. Not only are there tons of winged creatures in it, the colors are amazing. I love how the big bird is not showing its face. And I love how its the only colored bird, all the other ones being black. It makes me thing that maybe the other birds are parts of the original one.








Forget Tomorrow - Pintip Dunn

 It's no secret that I love Kelley Armstrong, so I may be biased in my love for this cover. Then again, what is there not to like? There's a massive dragon on it. So I have to love it for that alone. It looks like the dragon is made of snow. And the snowflakes are creating a circle in front of the dragon, which gives me the illusion that maybe the dragon isn't really there, that it's a trick of snow and wind. Either way, I'd love to have this book on my shelf, because my shelf needs prettifying.

Forest of Ruin - Kelley Armstrong

This cover is so gorgeous. It's simple, which makes it even more beautiful. The door makes me wonder what's on the other side and if anyone can go through it. The forest behind it makes me think that maybe there are scary things both behind and in front of that door, that no matter what a character does, sometimes both sides suck. And the sun rays are beautiful too. The perspective seems a little off, maybe a little wrong too, but that adds something to the entire picture. I'd love to read this book, especially after reading the blurb.






Every Heart a Doorway - Seanan McGuire