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Jan 04, 2017JCLChrisK rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Wink Poppy Midnight casts a spell and weaves a web. Its language is both sumptuous and cynical, equally enchanting with atmosphere and engaging with hard-edged reality, magically vague about some things and disturbingly specific about others. Its web is the entangling relationships between its three alternating narrators. Our first sentence from Midnight: "The first time I slept with Poppy, I cried." Our first sentence from Wink: "Every story needs a hero." Our first sentence from Poppy: "I fell in love with Leaf Bell the day he beat the sh** out of DeeDee Ruffler." Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. The twisting mystery of this book is which character fills which role and what secrets they are hiding. At times the roles seem obvious, but then a new secret is revealed that gives everything a new spin. The mystery lies in figuring out who these people are beneath the tales they spin about themselves, who they are to each other, and what the cost of revealing the answers will be. It's not quite a love triangle, though attraction and romantic feelings definitely complicate the dynamics. As do spooky woods, a haunted house, a hayloft, rumors and innuendo, and lots of sneaking around in the middle of the night. No one will emerge unscathed. Are any of them the hero? Highly engaging and appealing.