From their trip to Amsterdam to meet the reclusive Van Houten to their hilariously flirty repartee, readers will swoon on nearly every page.

The two become connected at the hip, and what follows is a smartly crafted intellectual explosion of a romance. He agrees to read the Van Houten and she agrees to read his-based on his favorite bloodbath-filled video game. She’s smart, snarky and 16 she goes to community college and jokingly calls Peter Van Houten, the author of her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, her only friend besides her parents. He’s a gorgeous, confident, intelligent amputee who always loses video games because he tries to save everyone. Sparks fly when Hazel Grace Lancaster spies Augustus “Gus” Waters checking her out across the room in a group-therapy session for teens living with cancer. She’s fighting the brown fluid in her lungs caused by tumors. He’s in remission from the osteosarcoma that took one of his legs. Characters appear white by default with the exception of a love interest with a Latino surname.Ī touching, albeit lengthy, story about the painful process of moving on. Susannah’s first-person narration is punctuated with evocative descriptions of the Santa Anas and the wildfires they bring-characters in their own right. Susannah has three potential suitors she fights to come to grips with her mother’s new dating life she meets the grandmother whom she’d been led to believe dead and she works to hold onto her best friend from her old life while making music with new friends. A lot happens to the grieving teen over the course of the 400-plus pages, but Smetana deftly avoids overwhelming readers. With the move, Susannah finds herself struggling to start over while mourning her loss. As proxy, she resolves to locate his former band members, but before she can begin the legwork, financial hardship dictates that she and her mother move away from the life she’s always known. When her father dies, any hope of reconnecting goes with him. But lately, her dad, a former rock star, has been longing for the past, making it difficult for Susannah to connect with him in the present. Here, along with chord progressions and songwriting, her dad taught her to trust her instincts and her heart. Susannah Hayes cherishes the long tradition of midnight music lessons in her father’s home studio. In the wake of loss, a teen musician struggles to get her groove back.

The midnights by sarah nicole smetana