[Review] Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington

Summary: Sidney and Asher should have clicked. Two star swimmers forced to spend their summers on a lake together sounds like the perfect match. But it’s the same every year—in between cookouts and boat rides and family-imposed bonfires, Sidney and Asher spend the dog days of summer finding the ultimate ways to prank each other. And now, after their senior year, they’re determined to make it the most epic yet.

But their plans are thrown in sudden jeopardy when their feud causes their families to be kicked out of their beloved lake houses. Once in their new accommodations, Sidney expects the prank war to continue as usual. But then she gets a note—Meet me at midnight. And Asher has a proposition for her: join forces for one last summer of epic pranks, against a shared enemy—the woman who kicked them out.

Their truce should make things simpler, but six years of tormenting one another isn’t so easy to ignore. Kind of like the undeniable attraction growing between them. (Pub Date: Apr 04, 2020)


When pranks go too far, you can't trust the other anymore even during a truce or a relationship.

3.5.

Sidney and Asher used to get along, until they started a yearly game of pranks every summer they met at the lake where his parents rented a house. This is the last time before college changes everything and after going too far and getting everyone kicked out they pair up to take revenge. But how to believe their truce, their feelings aren't another prank?

I was commenting on another enemies-to-friends book review how it's usually silly when the writer tries to show the fights when we all know they secretly love each other, and we end up with clichés. Well, Jessica Pennington was pretty extreme to make the pranks real, because I was truly scared teenagers could go so far for very little reward—which would inevitably convert into some counterattack. So, yeah, this is an example of two people who really got in each other's nerves.

As I mentioned we eventually get to the bottom of the story of how they came to that. It was a bit of a childish explanation—but they were very young then so there's that—, but I like that there was a reason and not just that they could smell they couldn't get along at first sight, like a lot of books like doing.

I also appreciate the point of how their minds got so twisted from the pranks, they don't trust each other even after one declares their feelings to the other. This is an angle that doesn't usually get well used in this trope. At the same time, this also gave way to one of this book's biggest flaws: it dragged. This was an unnecessarily long read.

This is a great book that doesn't get lazy with the trope but it loses rhythm, so be ready for that. And yet, I was extremely excited for the chance of reading it. The cover is so pretty! And the characters also got me swooning.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by both Netgalley and Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 4 out of 5.