April Genevieve Tucholke

--------Update 12/10/16---------

Full review can also be found on my blog! :)

Wink Poppy Midnight was a book I read in November that I really had no intention of reading. But seeing that beautiful cover at the library, I just couldn't help myself. I have very mixed feelings about this novel, and most of it I actually didn't like.

WHAT I LIKED
The best things about this book for me were the mood and the setting. I loved the countryside, forested, farmhouse, damp-piney-undergrowth kind of feel. It manages to have this spooky yet very cozy feeling for the entire novel, which honestly was a big reason why I stuck with it to the end. There's also a lot of magical realism in this book, which was something I don't see too often but enjoy when I do. There are elements of fortune telling, tarot card reading, haunted houses, and forest spirits.

Another thing I liked was the author's prose – for the most part it was very beautiful and lyrical. The way she described the settings were especially fantastic. Initially, I also really enjoyed the characters. For most of the novel, I thought the characters were pretty strong. At least for the fact that they had consistent personalities, and I had very distinct reactions to them and the things they did.

WHAT I DISLIKED
Sadly there were a lot of things I disliked about em>Wink Poppy Midnight. Actually... it was probably one of the less enjoyable books I've read this year. I did actually mostly enjoy it for the first 60% of the story... and then things got weird. And annoying.

So while I intially enjoyed the characters, I quickly came to really dislike Midnight. I thought he was really wishy-washy, and it annoyed me how he couldn't be assertive at all. Poppy is really abusive to him, and basically just using him for sex - even when he shows interest in other people, he won't say no to Poppy. His relationship to Poppy also felt very unrealistic: she's able to just crawl in his window for most of the story, and he just lets her do it with resigned acceptance. Like, dude... lock your window??

While I did really enjoy a lot of the writing, and I thought a lot of it was really beuatiful and luscious... other aspects of it were just plain annoying. For instance, (and with Poppy's POV especially), there was constant repeating repeating repeating of words words word for emphasis emphasis emphasis. I really hate that whenever I see this used in any book, because to me it feels really lazy. I'm not a great writer, but I knowit's possible to emphasize thoughts and ideas without repetition. One other aspect of the writing that I found to be distracting, was in Wink's POV chapters. She is constantly talking in metaphor. Wink is very interested in fairy tales, so she uses fairy tales to describe what is happening or how she's feeling. The problem with this for me was that many of the stories used as metaphors were made up... so you kind of have to guess how it relates to what's going. I found it very distracting.

And finally, the worse part of this book was the ending – it totally ruined this book for me. The ending is very sudden and extremely vague. I don't mind having the message of a book be very subtle, but whatever message was trying to be conveyed by the ending, I couldn't pick up on at all. Additionally, the characters suddenly do a complete 180 in personality. They end up completely different from how they are for most of the book. At this point I was like...



Part of the story's purpose was to point out that in reality, people aren't just cookie-cutter stereotypes – such as "hero" or "villain" – but still. Most normal people don't have COMPLETELY different personalities all of a sudden. It reads like a last-minute decision, and felt like a cheap way of creating a plot twist.

And then finally, the actual ending comes, and it literally made no sense to me at all. It makes so little sense, that I thought I had missed something, or maybe some pages got torn out of my book. There was nothing satisfying about the ending, and absolutely no closure. It felt like it ended in the middle of a chapter. It ends THAT abruptly. Ugh. Overall, there was just so much more to this story that I wanted, but didn't get.



CONCLUSIONS
When I started this book I thought it had a lot of promise. I was excited about the setting, and the writing that was flowery in just the right ways. But the characters don't stay true to themselves, and the ending was a major disappointment: it tries to send a deep message (of which I couldn't determine) by being vague, and left me extremely unsatsified. Overall, the ending made this book very weak. On Goodreads, I initially gave this book three stars, but after writing this review and thinking about it more, I have to give this book two stars. I wouldn't recommend really recommend it to anyone, unless you want to experience the frustration yourself.

Final rating: ⭐️⭐️… (more)

This book has left me somewhat speechless. I expected a creepy, spine-tingling Gothic horror replete with old house, perhaps a haunting or two, paranormal goings-on etc. I was also hoping for a more profound connection to the sea given the title and cover. I got the old house and the paranormal goings-on, but alas no deep sea connection (which is wholly my fault for having that sort of expectation, not the book's failing) and then a whole lot of what I hadn't expected - violence. the writing - brilliant! I loved the voice, I loved the descriptions, I loved the purplish prose and the use of repetition and the juxtaposition of innocence with darkness. 5 stars for the writing. The characters - I wanted to smack Violet upside the head several times. She drove me crazy with her 'I know better but I'm just going to give into hormones or whatever for no apparent reason.' Her brother was a far more interesting character but didn't get enough page time imo. I also really liked Sunshine - she had spunk, and Jack was lovely. As for River and Neely. I can't really say I know what to make of them. At first I was intrigued by the mysterious River, then repulsed, then sort of sympathetic. He was complex and well-written, but he definitely made me do the opposite of swoon. Neely was better, I liked him. Whole book dedicated to Neely please! As for the antagonist 0.o Without giving away spoilers, suffice it to say, I was nauseated, severely. 4 stars for the cast of characters.

This book has left me rather perplexed. At times, I hated the story, but I couldn't put it down and was totally seduced by the writing. In the end, writing trumps story for me this time so I'll settle on 4 stars. Definitely interested in reading more by this author.
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