Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
Published: March 22, 2016 (Dial Books)
Pages: 247
Started Reading: August 9, 2017
Finished Reading: August 11, 2017
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery
3/5 Stars
Synopsis:
Every story needs a hero.
Every story needs a villain.
Every story needs a secret.Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous.
What really happened?
Someone knows.
Someone is lying. (x)
One of the reasons I picked this up was the size. It’s a pretty short book compared to other YA books of the same genre, with only 247 pages. I often get overwhelmed with long books so this seemed like the perfect quick read for me!
Wink Poppy Midnight wasn’t my favourite book that I’ve read, but I found it really refreshing. Although the characters are quite common in YA books with a mean girl, a quiet girl, and a generic YA type male character, the writing and storyline really added a level of originality and creativity into this story.
I did struggle a bit with the story though. I get confused easily in books and although confusion is just another aspect of the book, I felt lost most of the time. During the “plot twist” I had no idea what was going on. I lost a lot of the tone and suspense because it went right over my head.
I also really didn’t like the way the characters other than the 3 main characters were written. They were completely irrelevant and flat. The three mains were developed enough that a reader had a sense of their traits and personality, but it would have been nice to have a bit more background and character building.
Another thing I struggled with a bit was the magic element. I had a hard time trying to figure out if the magic was real or if it was just something Wink was making up. Maybe that was supposed to be an element of the story, but if it was it felt unnecessary. The story would have flowed a lot better for me if I knew what was true and what was being made up by Wink.
Although I did mention a lot of negatives, this book was really entertaining. The short format was perfect for it. If the book was any longer than it was it would have dragged on and on so I am very glad the author kept it at the page length it is. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of mysterious and quirky books!
