Wink Poppy Midnight

by April Genevieve Tucholke

Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbour 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 tremendous or possibly both. What really happened? Someone knows. Someone is lying.

• ISBN13: 9780803740488
• Publish Date: 22 March 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 9 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Dial Books for Young Readers,US
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 0.5 stars

Initial thoughts: There was no point to Wink Poppy Midnight. One of the main characters was so petty, it practically engulfed her every being. She strung others along simply because she could; treating others badly purely for entertainment. That got old really fast.

Several scenes were described for the sake of it rather than to connect them to an overarching plot. And altogether, the prose sounded pretty but the words were empty, hardly conveying anything at all. This book was probably meant to be whimsical but somehow that ended up in so much confusion that things just fell apart.

[Sam@WLABB]

I have read some of the other reviews on GoodReads, and am glad to see I am not alone. Once this story got to where it was going, I felt a little like this


BUT, that does not mean I did not enjoy Wink Poppy Midnight. Cognitive disequilibrium often leads to great understanding, and can result in a very rich and gratifying experience. I digress....

The Hero suddenly knew that this story wouldn't be like all other stories. There wouldn't be swords, or monsters, or trials. There wouldn't be riddles, or revenge, or resurrections. But there would be redemption. And love. And life. And ever after.

Wink Poppy Midnight focuses on the very complicated relationships between and among: Wink - the starry eyed dreamer who lives in books, Poppy - the wealthy, but lonely mean girl, and Midnight - the sensitive tender-heart. When I say these people are complicated, I mean really complicated. They all had multiple issues weighing them down, but the more intriguing aspect, was how they slid in and out of their assigned personas. I guess each character was searching for who they were, and we got to be part of the journey.

She just stood in front of me and let me keep on being whoever I really was. And no one had ever done that for me before

Tucholke's writing is so special. There is something profoundly beautiful about her phrasing, and I don't mean flowery. It's lush and vivid without all that. The words feel so right together, and fit the atmosphere of the story to a T. I found myself completely engrossed in this book, and found myself fighting sleep in order to finish.

I pulled away. I looked at her, and she smiled. She smiled right into me - I felt it echo in my ribs, like a shout, like a deep, deep sigh.

Overall: very interesting atmospheric read, with characters I actually grew to care about and gorgeous prose.

BLOG|INSTAGRAM|BLOGLOVIN| FRIEND ME ON GOODREADS

[meowstina]

I received an advance reader's copy indirectly (from a friend).

This is one of those mysterious, fantasy-like books that can go one of two ways: it can be twisting and bewitching in the best way, or it can be weird and confusing. Unfortunately, for me it’s the latter. The characters are messed up and heightened versions of their tropes, and the story goes back and forth and into strange places. And sometimes this works, but in this case I do not like it at all. It’s just too much and too flowery for me.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

I finished Wink Poppy Midnight a few days ago and ever since then I've been debating what to say in this review. The one thing I'm sure of about this book is that it's really odd and I'm having a hard time figuring out to go from there, so bear with me.

This story is about three teenagers: Wink, Poppy, and Midnight. All three of these characters were incredibly unique in their own way, although I didn't particularly care for a single one of them. At first I really thought I was going to love Wink the most, with her quirky characteristics and the weird fantasies she spins around herself. I knew immediately that I didn't like Poppy at all. There came a point when I wasn't quite sure if I was supposed to feel sorry for her or not, but I couldn't bring myself to care about whether she even lived or died, to be honest. She's just a bitch. :/

If I had to choose one character who I sympathized with most it would be Midnight who seems to be caught up in the middle of everything through no fault of his own. Poor Midnight seems to want to just live his life and be happy. Meanwhile, Poppy the Bully and Wink the Weirdo are both pulling him in different directions. Poppy wants Midnight for herself (or does she?) and Wink wants him to be the hero of her super weird fantasy world. I didn't quite get his romance with either of the female leads - one seemed incredibly unhealthy and the other seemed like an extreme case of insta-love. Unfortunately, I couldn't really love Midnight either and I have a hard time with books that don't make me feel close to any of the characters.

The plot of this story is... weird. It's certainly very mysterious and I would expect no less from the author of The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, but I'm not sure that it worked out quite as well in this book as it did in that one. The mysteries were so mysterious that, by the end, I honestly didn't know what was going on. I didn't understand why everyone ended in the place they did and why no one seemed to be mad at anyone who deserved it.

The one thing I can say Wink Poppy Midnight really has going for it is its setting. Although the story was a little too weird for me, the author definitely made me feel like I was in the midsts of this kind of Southern, kind of fairytale(ish) setting. It achieved all the dreamy feels it was going for - I just wish more had been done with it than just spinning a super strange tale that left with more questions than were answered.

I know this review may seem a little jumbled, but I'm not sure what else I can say without giving the story away completely. Even if I could include all the spoilers, I'm not sure I'd be able to get much across because that's just how weird this book was. I didn't hate it. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it at times. At the end of the day, though, I really couldn't identify with a single character and I was still really confused at the end. I have loved every other thing April Genevieve Tucholke has written, but this one just didn't do it for me.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

[Eve1972]

First off I want to say that this book has an AWESOME cover. It's what drew me in first. I also loved the names of the three main characters...POPPY - MIDNIGHT - WINK. The writing was lyrical and had an almost mythical quality to it, and the quick 3 POV transitioned moved the story along at a nice pace.

NOW, that being said. I think this book was over my head. I feel like I missed some sort of deeper meaning or message. Because honestly, I have NO frigging clue what this book was supposed to be about.



None of the characters in this book were likable in the least. POPPY was an OTT bitch queen bee. Her and Midnight have a sexual relationship for the past year, well she has been having sex with him and two hanger-ons. Playing them all against each other. Which seemed a bit calculating for a 17-year-old. Then you have WINK who is WEIRD and not in the cute and quirky way, but in the "perhaps a physiatrist visit is in order" way. Last but not least you have MIDNIGHT who comes across as a spineless idiot. None of the teenagers in this books speak or act like 16/17 olds. At least not like the ones I am subjected to on a daily basis!



That brings me to the ending. A more frustrating ending I could not imagine. I DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT. The whole thing with the Tarot cards and WINK dying young?? Say what now?? The fact that the whole book the author had been working towards a romance between WINK and MIDNIGHT just to have MIDNIGHT move to Paris without so much as a GOOD-BYE to WINK. Then WINK apparently going to get with one of the hanger-on boys??!! The whole fairy tale thing??!!

Quite frankly, this whole book made my head hurt, and NOT in a good way...sigh.