Book Review: Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

Genre: YA Contemporary Mystery Romance
Publication: March 2016 by Dial Books
Acquisition: bought

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.

(from Goodreads)

2.5 / 5 Stars

Wink, Poppy and Midnight are people. These are their actual names. They are the protagonists, each telling their own part of the story.

Their names are Wink, Poppy and Midnight...and...ok...I went with it. I mean, unique names in YA aren't a new thing.

But then we get:

Leaf, Alabama, Briggs, Buttercup, Guillermo, Sung, Talley, Bee Lee, Hops and Moon.

These are also people and these are also their real names and OMG I can't focus on anything else! What is in the water in this town! Why!?

Distracting as all hell.

There was a mystery, sort of, and a romance or 2 or 3 - I lost count after Finn, Della and Tonisha gathered with Guillermo, Sung and The Yellows...or maybe that was before Midnight talked about Alabama and Talley and France (the country -- and oh my, the fact that I needed to say 'the country' so you knew it wasn't another character? yeah...)

Ug!

I so wanted to like this book. The setting is strange and the relationships are off the wall and the characters are insane! So, it should have been a total win.

But seriously...I just couldn't get past the names! There were more traditionally named folks in here too, don't get me wrong. But when a character is mentioned in literally 1 sentence, and they are just there to be there because the scene needs people and their name is Sung...it's going to be one of the only things that stick.

Seriously though? Names aside...I didn't love the story. The plot was all over the place and Wink was just so weird, and Poppy was just so bitchy and Midnight was just so awkward teenage boy...except they weren't. Everyone is put into these neat boxes - just so they could break out of them and that's where the deep, hidden meanings and reasons for everything come out and ok, maybe I'm just too shallow but it didn't resonate with me at all.

So, would I recommend Wink Poppy Midnight? Yeah, I think I would. Reviews are all over the map and some people really loved the weirdness and some really loved the romance and most people aren't as fixated on oh! oh! shinny thing! shinny thing! as I am and totally wouldn't be bothered by the name thing.

Wink Poppy Midnight is a very unique book and if you're looking for something a little different, I think you'll enjoy it. Just because it didn't work for me, doesn't mean it won't work for you!