Review--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 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.

April Genevieve Tucholke is a writer with a very unique style to her books. They are very lyrical kinds of reads. It’s not as classy as poetry or classics, but there’s definitely a distinct style to it as you read. Wink Poppy Midnight was yet another unique and beautifully told tale, but like her previous books, there’s a foggy air of mystery and no clear-cut answers.

There are three main characters in this story, Wink, Poppy, and Midnight. One’s a hero, a villain, and a liar. Who’s who is up to you to figure out. Wink is your carefree spirit kind of girl. She’s very different and is almost innocent like with her behavior and knowledge of things. She enjoys reading fairy tales and is constantly reading them to her siblings. Poppy is your sort of stuck up popular girl with a definite mean streak. And Midnight is the boy caught between the two. He was in love with Poppy but she shunned him for the most part, even after they were together. She was cruel and mean to him, unless she wanted something from him.

It’s hard to say what goes on in this book because one, spoilers, and two…it’s really hard to say! LOL! Midnight starts hanging out with Wink more and that makes Poppy jealous and soon she’s angling to play a cruel prank on Wink and she wants Midnight’s help.

I struggle to write this review, because I struggle to understand what I read. When dealing with a liar—and we know someone’s lying here—you are never sure who to trust in a story. Can we trust their accounts of what’s going on? Can we trust anyone’s? It’s all a big mystery and puzzle. And in the end, you still aren’t entirely sure what the big picture is.

And yet, I didn’t hate the book. I wasn’t 100% in love with it, because I like answers. I like to have a clear cut idea of what all just happened and while I feel like we get some of that, I just don’t have the big picture down. It’s like a puzzle with key pieces missing. You can almost see what the final result is, but the missing pieces are making it rather difficult.

Still, I did really like this one! There’s mystery and secrets and some creepy things happening too towards the end. And still, that not knowing part actually adds to the mystery because you aren’t entirely sure if it was real or not. It’s almost like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Most particularly Lady in the Water, because it had the strange air of mystery and fantasy to it and how everyone has a part to play. Though I haven’t seen that movie in years, and I found it a tad confusing towards the end, much like I did with this book! But oddly enough, I’m almost okay with not knowing. Maybe it’s all about the interpretation. Our own imaginings just might be the ending of the story.

Wink Poppy Midnight is an intriguing and mysterious read but is not for the faint of heart. It will confound and confuse you at times and there may not be an answer to what you want to know most. So be prepared for that, otherwise, enjoy a truly beautifully told tale and the characters with deeper meanings and motives within!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars