Um… So….This Book….Yeah, I think it’s time to borrow this meme from my Grasshopper Jungle review:
I got this audiobook from my library because I got it confused with some other book and thought it was about Victorian-era spies. But, since the audio was only 5 hours I figured I could knock it out in a week.
Wink Poppy Midnight isn’t as insane as something like Grasshopper Jungle but I have no idea where to start with this book. The story was confusing and really bizarre …. it just didn’t feel like YA. I think Tucholke was trying to subvert some Manic Pixie Dreamgirl tropes but most of this book felt like something Guy In Your MFA would write. But let me back up
Wink Poppy Midnight is about three teenagers; Wink, the mysterious loner with a mother who reads tarot cards. Poppy, the gorgeous manipulative mean girl and Midnight, the boy whose attention both of these girls are extremely interested in because of reasons. The summer Midnight moves next door to Wink’s family farm, Poppy starts to get jealous and it does not end well and things get weird. Also, I’m still not sure what happened in this book.
This book is paired a lot with The Raven Boys and while there are some similarities with the tarot cards, magical places and things not being what the seem it lacks all of the charm of The Raven Boys. I just could not with Midnight. He gets most of the narrative but I felt like I didn’t know anything about him as a character.
Part way through I had a feeling there would be a twist, which there was, but it only made me more confused. I actually went deep into the Goodreads reviews to find some answers about what exactly happened and there were lots of different theories. Speaking of Goodreads, this is one of those books that either gets 1 star or 5 stars.
The only thing keeping me going was the narration. I especially liked Michael Crouch who sounds so young and does a great job imitating the other female voices without it sounding weird. Wink’s narrator, Alicyn Packard, had a lot of vocal fry, it made her sound older for YA, but I would listen to her narrate an adult book.
A great performance with a weird story and no payoff. I think maybe my biggest problem with this book is I just didn’t get it.
I’m a lifelong reader who started blogging about YA books in 2011 but now I read in just about every genre! I love YA coming of age stories, compelling memoirs and genre bending SFF. You can find me talking all things romance at Romance and Sensibility.