Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

Publication Date:  March 22, 2016
Publisher:  Dial Books
Pages:  247
Series:  Stand Alone
Genre:  Contemporary
Synopsis:  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.

Review:  Wink Poppy Midnight is a strange, twisted fairy tale told from the perspective of three characters that are as quirky as their names.  

Living up to its fairy tale vibes, the writing is a whimsical delight.  The sensory details kind of fold you into this hazy dreamworld where nothing quite makes sense.  It has a tendency to be rather repetitive, delivering metaphors and words in sequences of threes.  While this links the story together and stays true to the fairy tale theme, at times it ventured off from being artsy to being annoying.

When you look into the darkness, the darkness looks into you.

The plot is practically nonexistent and mind boggling.  I kept wondering what the point of this book was, as many other readers have.  However, I have come to the conclusion that this book is not there to provide some grand, structured plot.  Wink Poppy Midnight is instead an exploration of a thought--a feeling captured in text.  It's a half-forgotten memory brought to the surface, leaving you with a sense of nostalgic wonder, if not overwhelming contentment.

Wink, Poppy, and Midnight form the title and also a peculiar cast of characters. Although the theme comes off weak and tacked on at the end, it is still an intriguing presentation of character dynamics.  

All good Heroes are scared, if they know the evil they face.

Wink has a tendency to be removed from reality, retreating into herself and turning the world into her storybook.  Poppy plays the role of the typical mean girl, typecast as the villain in this narrative...or is she?  Midnight is the most "normal" point of view, the hero who needs to grow a backbone.  While their archetypes are intriguing, as well as the far-fetched notion that people are just people, their stories wrap up quite abruptly and could have been expanded more.

If you expect detailed plot lines and world building, this isn't for you.  But if you want poetic writing and to be enveloped in a story for a day or two, then Wink Poppy Midnight is worth a shot.  This book is what you make of it, for the best or for the worst.