Meet Me at Midnight // Review

Ah, summer love.

A classic, feel-good, lovey YA trope that has been done over and over and over, and somehow still never gets old.

I’ve seen a few people give Meet Me at Midnight love recently, and given that one of my faves of last year ended up being a random, out of nowhere YA pick I found in the blogosphere, I’m inclined to give all the cute YA’s a try.

This one was pretty much exactly as I expected it to be, if not maaaaybe a bit of a letdown. It was fun, light, cute, and overall an easy read. I did find myself dragging towards the second half and there were parts that had me groaning in frustration, but it did make me smile, and I’m overall glad I gave it a shot.

• The premise was adorable! Two arch-nemeses turned lovers? YES! The idea of two kids who play pranks on each other every summer only to realize that they both might be suppressing some ~feels~ is so fun, and I loved it.

• The lake! Gosh, do I wish I had a lakehouse growing up. I didn’t, sadly, but some of my friends did, so I get the whole nostalgia and the bone-deep love of a summer lakehouse. Also, Midwest represent, hello Michigan!

• The history of the parents being friends and how fun that dynamic was. I love the types of “adult friendship brings the children together” tropes, so I enjoyed watching these college couples stay close and reconnect each summer at a beloved lakehouse.

• Some of the moments felt a bit…off. It was as if we as readers were supposed to be clued in on something, but weren’t, so we were left to infer what was happening but if we got it wrong things didn’t make sense. For example, there’s a convo between Syd and Asher where he goes “I have to ask you something” and she’s like “okay…what is it?” and he goes “will you dance with me?” and she says “you’re the worst!”. So, were we supposed to assume that she thought he was going to ask her to be his girlfriend and that’s why she’s saying he’s the worst? That’s a lot of assuming when instead the author could’ve written in “This is it, this is the moment where he asks me to be his girlfriend” or something along those lines! I dunno, just some moments like this feel kinda weird because emotions aren’t explicitly stated and the convos feel choppy and disjointed as a result.

• Asher puts in a lot of work to woo Syd when she doesn’t give much in return. Don’t get me wrong – I liked Syd…kinda. It’s just that she jumps to conclusions easily and gets worked up over things that really weren’t that big of a deal, so obviously it would’ve been easy for Asher to think that she wasn’t as into it as him. Instead, he continues to show her how caring and sweet he is, which I’m not too sure she 100% appreciates or deserves. She has serious trust issues, and I felt like Asher was having to “prove” over and over again that he really cared for her, and I don’t consider that a healthy, balanced relationship.

• The pacing is odd. I should’ve flown through this in 24 hours. Instead, it took me 4 days. Some scenes were way longer than they needed to be, and we get a lot of Sydney and Asher reflecting internally when I really wanted to see them interact. Also, some things were built up and then lasted…a paragraph?

Overall, this one was enjoyable, if not forgettable. I rented it from the library, and while I don’t regret it, I won’t be scrambling on over to Amazon to purchase myself a copy. If you’re in the mood for a light, predictable, somewhat hit-or-miss story, this one could be a great read!

My rating:

Have you read Meet Me at Midnight? What did you think?