Books I've Read: Midnights With You

 

Those dark, late night hours when everyone else is asleep can be a sanctuary and this book really leans into that idea.

It's about two damaged kids, dealing with family trauma who wind up living across the street from one another and sharing their secrets in those night-quiet midnight hours.  Deedee is an only child whose over-protective mother smothers her on the one hand, and ignores her on the other.  Nothing she does is ever good enough and her mother never misses an opportunity to remind her of this.  She just tells her the Filipino ghost stories she grew up with but never explains to Deedee what they are supposed to mean or how they relate to their life the America.

Jay moves in across the street with his mother and sister.  Deedee quickly notices that he too spends time awake after midnight.  It is inevitable that their paths will cross while each tries to enjoy their solitude.  Deedee's mother won't let her learn to drive and Jay practically lives in his car.  When he offers to teach Deedee, in secret,  she jumps at the chance.

And little by little the barriers each of them have erected to protect themselves from the people and the world that insist on hurting them, begin to fall and the pair begin to rely on one another, and maybe even to fall in love.

There was a lot to like about this book.  The characters felt, for the most part, real and their problems were real-life problems that kids, especially the kids of relatively recent immigrant families might face.  There' s a real sense of the disconnect between the generations, one of which grew up immersed in a different culture to the one the current generation has been brought up in.  The difference in expectations and behaviours. 

That said, I wasn't 100% convinced by Deedee's mother as a character.  She was just too awful too much of the time - and to everyone.  Even the most evil of people have moments of compassion and humanity, and by the time Deedee, and therefore us, get to see this side of her, it was really too late.

But there was enough else to like about this book that I didn't let one cartoonish character ruin it for me.

So, I'll recommend it.  It's not perfect, but I definitely enjoyed reading it.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Two high school seniors with family trauma keeping them up at night fall in love over a series of secret late-night driving lessons.

Seventeen-year-old Deedee’s life is full of family ghosts and questions she can’t ask. She longs for an escape, but guilt holds her back—that, and the fact that her strict Filipino single mom won’t let her learn to drive. But one sleepless night leads Deedee down a road she never thought possible: secret driving lessons with the new boy next door, Jay, whose turbulent family life also keeps him up until sunrise.

As midnights stretch into days, Jay helps Deedee begin to unravel her past, and as shared secrets blossom into love, Deedee starts to imagine a life where happiness is possible. But the deeper she digs into the trauma that has shaped her, the more that trauma threatens to tear Deedee and Jay apart. Together, these two must decide if the pain they’ve both inherited has the power to choose their fate, or if they have the power to choose for themselves.