Midnights with You is an emotionally searing debut. It’s a moving story about intergenerational trauma, family secrets, and love. I couldn’t stop reading as I became more and more immersed in this story. Keep reading my book review of Midnights with You for my full thoughts.
Summary
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.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Midnights with You begins with secret driving lessons. And it turns into a story about diaspora experiences, the wounds we inherit from our family, and the burdens we are forced to bear. It explores the emotional abuse from parents, the weight of their feelings, guilt, and trauma. How difficult it is to see ourselves clearly when we have these lessons and echoes of pain ringing in our ears. Midnights with You also examines biracial identity, how we can feel isolated and in a liminal space. And swirling amidst all of this, Midnights with You emphasizes that we cannot save a drowning person when we ourselves are drowning.
That we have to see the ways we need to help ourselves and also lean on those around us. Midnights with You is multi-faceted and shimmering even when you don’t expect it. I loved the exploration of mothers and daughters, of feeling alone and wondering if we’ve messed up. All with the knowledge that we pass on our pain. We see the memories, the stories, the food and we want to soak up those moments. We know the next ones won’t be the same. And yet, Midnights with You revolves around love. It examines the idea that love requires sacrifice. And who will pay it? What will the costs of our sacrifices be and what will keep us up at night?
(Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. For more information you can look at the Policy page. If you’re uncomfortable with that, know you can look up the book on any of the sites below to avoid the link)
Sometimes we walk into someone’s life at the wrong time. They walk into ours too soon, too late. And we need to realize that we might want to save the ones we love, but when we can’t save ourselves at the same time. That we have to put our oxygen mask on first. This is emotionally raw and beautifully honest. When we are stuck in an echo chamber of self-hatred, emotional abuse, and silence, what emerges? Find Midnights with You on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.