Together At Midnight by Jennifer CastleGenre: Contemporary
Release Date: 2nd January 2018
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Rating:
What does it really mean to be kind . . . and why does it sometimes feel like the hardest thing in the world to do? High school senior Kendall, who just returned from a life-changing semester in Europe, and Max, who is drifting his way through a gap year before college, struggle with these questions when they witness a tragic accident in New York City during the holiday season. Racked with guilt, the two accept a dare to perform random acts of kindness to strangers. The challenge pulls these two teens, who have a history together from back home, closer and closer as they explore a vibrant city filled with other people’s stories and secrets.
Kendall and Max can’t deny their growing bond, even though they both have other romantic entanglements and uncertain futures. As the clock counts down on New Year’s Eve, will they find themselves together at midnight?
Together At Midnight was freakin’ adorable! I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did because I’m sometimes a bit iffy about contemporary books, especially ones set around the holidays. I’m not sure why. I think Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares put me off because I hated that one. So I was putting off reading Together At Midnight, which was silly because it’s a really good book.
I loved the random acts of kindness that the main characters took part in. It was really lovely. I enjoyed seeing how these acts affected the people involved. Castle wrote a short chapter from the points of view of each of the people who Kendall and Max helped, and this was fantastic.
I also really liked both of the main characters and the slow-burn romance AAAANNNNDDDD the history the two characters had together. It was constructed really well and I don’t think I can fault it at all.
Kendall had ADHD and I really appreciated how Castle touched upon how differently it causes males and females to act, and how girls/women with ADHD and autism are often misdiagnosed or brushed aside.
New York City at Christmas was a great setting. It made me actually want to visit the city for more than a a day, as previously it wasn’t somewhere I was particularly dying to visit.
Some readers might not like the ending because it was left fairly open, but I really liked it because it was like a new beginning for everyone and it left everything open for the future.