Review of Nothing but Trouble After Midnight

Review by Jeff

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this novel. Clearly Kimberly Blackadar did not have twenty-two-year-old college guys in mind when she wrote her novel Nothing but Trouble After Midnight.
The book’s main character, seventeen-year-old Chloe, is woefully naive about the sexuality of the male gender and even more naive about just how naive she is. She dates the stereotypical asshole “hottest guy” on campus, Austin. She also has the typical brotherly best friend, Rob. The first two-thirds of the story build up to prom. The virginal Chloe plans on going with Austin until she discovers some condoms in his medicine cabinet and dumps him. Left without a prom date and a boyfriend, Chloe turns to Rob for comfort. They go to prom together and begin to date. The relationship flourishes until Rob has to go out of town for a few days.
Austin takes this chance to use his skills as a manipulator to rape Chloe. Her world collapses. She blames herself and dreads what Rob and her parents will think. She holds it in, pushing all of those close to her, especially Rob, away. Her reaction to the rape is all too common among girls her age.
Even if you aren’t a teenage girl, the novel is still a good read guaranteed to tug on some heartstrings. The characters are a tad cliché, and if you are a more mature reader it will get under your skin for the first half of the story. However, it does serve to set up the fictional high school ideal and subsequently expose its fallibility.
The book covers some extremely important issues for teenage girls. The fairytale strategy makes it enjoyable for its high school audience while effectively conveying the authors message. Having indirectly experienced the horrors that date rape can bring to a young woman’s life, I feel that the importance of this novel cannot be overstated. In an effort to shield their children, parents forget that high schoolers can have very adult experiences.
Chloe is a perfect example of how not to react to a rape. For this reason alone Nothing but Trouble After Midnight is a must read for all girls thirteen and up.

*Be sure to enter to win a copy of Nothing But Trouble After Midnight here. And come back tomorrow to read a guest post from Author Kimberly Blackadar*

A twenty-two-year-old University student, Jeff is the founder and coeditor of The Debut Authors Blog. He is an aspiring author and a self-avowed bibliophile. Also, he is not above shameless self-promotion and talking in the third-person.