.png)
Adventure, Friendship, Family, and Finding Yourself In One, Single Night
- Jhanya&Ria's Corner
- Jul 24, 2021
- 9 min read
“The way I figure, you wait around for permission, you never stop waiting, right?" - Cary
Take Me Home Tonight
Morgan Matson
Available on Amazon, Kindle, and leading bookstores
Published by Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers
04 May 2021
416 Pages
Synopsis:
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off meets Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist in this romp through the city that never sleeps from the New York Times bestselling author of Since You’ve Been Gone, Morgan Matson.
Two girls. One night. Zero phones.
Kat and Stevie—best friends, theater kids, polar opposites—have snuck away from the suburbs to spend a night in New York City. They have it all planned out. They’ll see a play, eat at the city’s hottest restaurant, and have the best. Night. Ever. What could go wrong?
Well. Kind of a lot?
They’re barely off the train before they’re dealing with destroyed phones, family drama, and unexpected Pomeranians. Over the next few hours, they’ll have to grapple with old flames, terrible theater, and unhelpful cab drivers. But there are also cute boys to kiss, parties to crash, dry cleaning to deliver (don’t ask), and the world’s best museum to explore.
Over the course of a wild night in the city that never sleeps, both Kat and Stevie will get a wake-up call about their friendship, their choices…and finally, discover what they really want for their future.
That is, assuming they can make it to Grand Central before the clock strikes midnight.
Ria: Take Me Home Tonight is Morgan Matson’s 5th and latest novel. It centers around t̶w̶o̶ three friends whose day took a turn for the worse, or better, we’ll let you be the judge.
Jhanya: One thing’s for sure though, it was bizarre. LMAO
Ria: We’ve essentially divided the book into four parts, similarly, this review will be in four parts also. By the way, my parts of the review will include a LOT of my instantaneous reactions to the characters and specific parts of the story.
Jhanya: While my review will focus more on the technicalities with a few added bits of reactions.
Ria: Let's get to it!
Introduction
Ria: The first part is just an introduction to our t̶w̶o̶ three main characters: Kat, Stevie, and Teri. We can also see how obsessed with theater Kat is and how Stevie is apprehensive about it. I can also already see a good gap for character development. What I did love about this first part is the FRIENDS mention AHAHAHAHA
The first thing that hit me was “Kat and Stevie have a very very weird friendship.” I see Kat as quite spoiled. She usually gets her way and forces Stevie to do things she doesn’t want to. She’s also an all-or-nothing kind of person. Like with ballet, when her parents and teacher said that it didn’t fit for her, she just gave up and moved to a new thing. She didn’t even try to prove them wrong. Stevie, on the other hand, is, at times, a pushover, but I like her. She just needs to stand up for herself and be more confident in herself. It’s said that she usually just shines through when acting. And I think she should learn to also channel that energy in her everyday life.
Jhanya: This book started off slow. To a point where the most interesting part at the beginning for me was the Beckett cameo (He’s Emily’s brother in Since You’ve Been Gone). It took its sweet time introducing us to Kat’s very egoistic, I’m-good-at-a-lot-of-things way of thinking, and her weird friendship with Stevie. As Ria has said, Kat is spoiled. To a point where she thinks she can control her best friend Stevie, just because she allows her to. While Stevie is a pushover but is also an absolute sweetheart who needs to learn how to express her feelings. Not just bottle them inside and wait for it all to explode.
I do have to commend Matson’s ability to set up the characters during the introduction. The main characters have very realistic personalities and she gives them enough room for growth. Even though she took her time, the attention to detail in the writing was very engaging and will definitely have theater nerds relating and gushing over the many theater scenarios.
Getting to New York
Ria: I have one sentence for this. Kat is so annoying, I hate it. At this point, I’m just pissed at her. She keeps wanting to kiss up to Mr. Campbell for a part in the play. Yes, sure, it’s important, but other things are more important to dwell on like being there for Stevie. Kat knows how much Stevie was looking forward to the dinner and she was blown off and Kat being the most selfish best friend forces her to still go to New York just so she could kiss up to Mr. Campbell.
I feel so bad for Stevie. After being stood up by her father, she’s being dragged to New York because her best friend is using her. Legit, not the best thing in the world. Although, she should’ve not gone with Kat. She should learn to stand up for herself, but at the same time, try new, challenging things (only if she wants to).
Teri is absolutely hilarious!!! I can’t believe she got stuck babysitting. I mean it is a lot better than Netflix and chilling with her *ss of a boyfriend. But still, I think she expected a better night than babysitting.
Okay, acknowledging the elephant in the room – the big fight. Both of them, in my opinion, had good points. Additionally, after having a not-so-good start to their trip, both were high on emotions so blowing up on each other is very understandable. I still think Kat is annoying and selfish for thinking of only herself. I also hate that Stevie and Kat both immediately assumed that they left each other when it obviously was an accident?! But I guess it was because of the fight and emotions and everything.
Jhanya: Since Ria pretty much summed up my thoughts for this part, I’m just gonna add how fast-paced this “arc” was. We went from the kind-of-snooze-fest introduction to Stevie getting stood up (again) by her father, Kat acting desperate for a role in the play, to the both of them going to New York, AND having the biggest best friend fight of the century. SHEESH
The Adventures
Ria: The chunk of the book starts when Stevie and Kat part ways. Each of them (including Teri) experiences an adventure not one of them would ever forget. They learn more about themselves and the world. All of our three main characters see the wrong pre-conceived notions they’ve assumed through their rose-colored glasses and are now correcting these.
Stevie’s adventure is my favorite out of all three. (bias??) Stevie’s conflict mainly revolves around her step-family and her relationship with them and her dad. She has always been stood up by her father in dinner meetings and she has a preconceived notion that her stepfamily is a snob. But, they’re actually not. She gets to know her step-siblings in this adventure and learns they are actually nice, friendly, and quite helpful (Matty and Margaux). Matteo is so cute, nice, and sweet, and I think I would like to have a brother like him. And throughout her adventure, I love how she opens up to him and even saves him from the Raptor (the most hilarious thing ever). Plus Margaux is such a cool b*tch. And the fact that Stevie and Brad became such close friends is the sweetest thing ever.
Jhanya: After years of hiding her feelings, Stevie was pretty much a walking time bomb at the start of this book. So I wasn’t surprised that she just exploded when everything was suddenly happening all at the same time. Her adventure focuses on her pent-up emotions regarding everything in her life and learning how to finally express them. She also learns to put her walls down with the help of her step-siblings and BRAD (who we all love and adore). The biggest part of her arc was when she finally stood up to her father and gave him the harsh wake-up call he deserved for not setting his priorities straight.
Ria: It’s honestly so great. I’m so proud of her *cries*
Moving on. The best thing that happened in Kat’s adventure is Cary. I also think that she has the most character development out of everyone. And I mean I kinda hated her at the start, but I grew to love her so much. She saw the sweet, hardworking, and still cheerful outlook that Cary has in life. Which made her realize that not everyone has everything handed to them on a silver platter. And the best part is her realizing her passion for dance again with Cary’s help.
I’d just like to reiterate one more time, I love you Cary *sob*.
Jhanya: Who doesn’t love him? He’s too good for this world ;-;
Ria: I guess one good trait that Kat has is her stubbornness. She still went to Mr. Campbell’s place and although that interaction did NOT go well, she learned a lot. Suddenly feeling so lost with the monstrosity she just saw, then add-in the worst conversation with Mr. Campbell, it’s understandable how lost she felt after that. The breaking deal for Kat was probably her conversation with Amy. Kat learns to stop giving up just because people around her let her down.
I’m also so happy for Kat because we finally see how much she’s grown in a matter of hours. She immediately apologized to Stevie and she understood where she went wrong. We see how she’s on her way to becoming the best friend that Stevie deserves. Not just that, I’m also so proud that Kat didn’t take the assisting director position. She spread her wings and didn’t stick to just acting. She took up the tasks of directing, playwriting, and even organizing a whole festival. I’m also absolutely thrilled that she got back into dancing. A great quote to insert here is this: “Don’t let anymore make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Lastly, Teri’s adventure is the most outrageous one. It’s quite unbelievable actually that this happened to them. I guess what is being highlighted in Teri’s character arc is her being more independent and self-aware. Her story is great to be turned into an action movie, legit. AHAAHAHAHA I’m just quite sad that her chapters are so short because many times I am looking forward to reading more of her story and character.
Jhanya: As much as I was entertained by Teri’s adventure, it felt so out of place for this book. I get that it is fiction, and Morgan Matson sometimes likes to add in bizarre plot points, but Teri’s wasn’t doing it for me. Not that it wasn’t a good storyline, but it was so random compared to what we saw with Kath’s and Stevie’s. I’m gonna be honest here and say that I sped through Teri’s chapters as it pulled me out of the story. Especially after reading important, and emotional chapters from the other MCs.
Final Thoughts
Jhanya: Take Me Home Tonight was FUN. I guess that pretty much sums up the book. I wouldn’t say that it’s been a long time since I’ve had fun with a book as much as I had fun with TMHT coz I’ve read The Inheritance Games not so long ago (check out our review here!), but I really did have an overall fun time with this book. It may have some pretty far-fetched plotlines (Teri I’m looking at you). But what Morgan Matson book doesn’t have one? I’m gonna be completely honest though, I would’ve preferred another book for Teri’s whole CIA plotline.
Ria: Overall, Take Me Home Tonight is such a fun book. We were taken on three whirlwind adventures with Stevie, Kat, and Teri. We saw the wonderful character arcs and developments that each of them had. This book also explored so many different themes: family, friendship, romantic relationships, teacher-student relationships, adventure, and finding yourself.
I also want to point out how Matson’s writing style fits so well with the themes. Her writing style focuses on characters and friendships rather than romantic boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. And although romance is still very much part of the stories she writes, it is obvious how the story revolves around the individual characters and how they’ve grown in just a matter of hours. She highlights the interactions they have in their own adventure (no matter how far-fetched, ahem, Teri) and what they’ve learned in the end.
Jhanya: TMHT takes the cake when it comes to highlighting realistic relationships, character growth, and giving the reader a lot of laughs along the way. It also goes above and beyond your usual contemporary YA plot, an absolute breath of fresh air from the numerous YA novels available today. From Matson’s usual quirky writing style and random cameos to the twists and turns our characters had to go through in one, single night, you’ll for sure have a blast and feel like you’re in NY/Connecticut while reading. I’d definitely recommend this for anyone who’s in the mood for a fun YA novel any day.
Also, it gets a few plus points since I was in the middle of a reading slump AND I MANAGED TO PUSH THROUGH LEZZGO. Ria: YES IM SO PROUD OF YOU <33333
Rating
FINAL RATING:
टिप्पणियां