I received this book for free (hey, thanks!) in exchange for an honest review. I promise that this does NOT affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. For real.
Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke on March 22nd 2016
(352 pages) • Goodreads • Amazon • Barnes & Noble
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.
I’m the kind of person who usually writes reviews immediately after finishing the book. I just really don’t even know what to say about this one and decided not to write the review right away, just in case it would come to me or something. This was a mistake because I’m struggling to even remember anything besides: this book was really fucking weird.
While my rating report below leans strongly towards 2.5, I just can’t bring myself to do it. It’s been a couple of days since I finished the book and (a) I barely remember what happened and (b) I don’t like anything that I do remember.
Within the first handful of pages, I could see the comparison to We Were Liars. As we all know by now, that book didn’t work for me in any way. I should have DNFed this one once I saw the comparison but something compelled me to keep going. For a while, I was glad I did! Things got really creepy and interesting for a handful of pages. But, then the end disappointed me.
As I said in my Goodreads review (at the bottom here), the entire first half or so of the book felt incredibly pointless. We learn a bit about the characters and their weird relationships, but that’s about it. There were short, easy “chapters” to highlight each character, so that helped with being able to read it quickly, but that was the only thing that kept me going for a while.
Things picked up in the middle, as I mentioned. The characters started doing some WEIRD things and I was intrigued. (No spoilers!) But just as quickly as I became interested, I became disinterested. I was just kind of over it. I also felt like an idiot because sometimes I didn’t really even understand what I was reading. I’m okay with quirky, weird characters… but I want to at least be invested in them if I don’t understand what they’re doing.
It’s really hard to review this book without spoiling the intricacies of their relationships. If you’ve previously read this author or enjoyed the books its compared to… give it a try. I haven’t seen a lot of negative reviews for this one. Sometimes I’m better off staying in my comfort zone!
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| Characters | |
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| Feels or Swoons |  |
| Addiction Level |  |
| Overall: | 2.4 |
Oh…I wanted to read this book, but since you said it’s similar to We Were Liars, maybe not. I tried We Were Liars, only a couple of chapters, though. Thought it was weird, boring, just yeah not for me. So oh well.
Well, give it a try maybe – at least the first few chapters 🙂
I felt the same way! I ended up on three stars, simply because I was somehow hooked in and needed to know what happened, but I also felt like the first half of the book seemed a little unnecessary. Like, I get it was character set-up but the whole plot didn’t evolve until halfway through. It was also definitely weird and I totally could not get on board with Wink. I think the fantastical and fairy tale elements totally turned me off because it ended up NOT being magical realism despite its feel. Then I was like, well Wink is just bonkers.
Yeah same! I was eager to see how it would all end, especially about some of the weird stuff that started happening haha. I definitely expected actual magical realism – which is something I’m interested in but have almost zero experience with – instead of just the fairytale stuff. Which, to be honest, I didn’t understand either lol. Glad I’m not alone!
I’m sorry you didn’t like this-you wrote up your feelings about it really well. I’m going to give it a try at some point because I loved We Were Liars, but I’m curious if it will be too weird for me as well.
Thank you! If you loved it, you might like this one 🙂 It’s definitely weirder than We Were Liars but the style was just kind of similar to me.
I’ve been debating reading this one for some time. It almost sounds like it’ll be a good library book and I can return it if I choose to DNF and not feel bad about it sitting on my shelf (though there is a gorgeous cover…) Great review!
Haha that’s definitely a good way to look at it!
Oh bummer. I’ll definitely pass on this one! 🙂
Yeah, didn’t work for me! 🙁
Ooh, good to know. We Were Liars didn’t work for me at all either and I’ve already disliked April Genevieve Tucholke’s other novels. Looks like I should skip this one then!
I would definitely think that’s a good idea, based on your feelings there!!
So I can only do weird to a degree, and I don’t think I can go this weird. Eh, I am not sure this one is for me either.
Yeah 🙁 it’s unfortunate. Weird can be cool!
Oh it is so disappointing that you did not like this one. Judging from your comments, I am fairly certain I won’t like it either. Oh well. Great review though.
Sorry to hear, hopefully you can feel good skipping it 😉
After reading Ava Lavender, “this book was really fucking weird” kind of makes me want to run the other way lmao! I think I’m kind of done with really fucking weird for a while. Disturbing I can go for, but weird was ruined for me with that book!
I’ve been eyeballing this simply because the cover is gorgeous, but I hated Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, so I’m not sure I want to even try this one. I might just wait and get it from the library!
I’ve heard a lot of people who LIKE her books really enjoyed it, but most people who haven’t liked her books weren’t huge fans. I’ve never read her other books but I don’t think they’re for me lol. The cover is SO GREAT THOUGH