2.75* Midnight, the boy in the story, is in love with Poppy, the queen bee. But she is cruel to him, only wanting him for sex and only using him for that because the man she wants didn't want her, Leaf. No matter how pretty she is on the outside (because inside she is ugly, according to Leaf). And Poppy owns it, she is cruel and mean. She is also a little psychopathic. But I think that her parents thinking of her as an angel, the same girl she was when she was a child, makes her act out harder. And despite being introduced like that, Poppy actually has a heart. She hurts like everyone else. Midnight it's the kind of sweet boy that would make the most wonderful of boyfriends. But he is used to being ridiculed, he expects it. So when Wink doesn't try to figure him out or insults him in any way, his heart, which had harden under Poppy's care, goes a little soft. But my first interaction with Wink made me feel like there was something off and weird about her... I swear that the Wink and Midnight portray Poppy as the cruel and mean girl that you should hate. Again, even Poppy herself does that. But she also shares the most intimate and vulnerable moments with the reader and I feel for her. It's sad. Poppy is bad, she is, she doesn't like to have "what's hers" taken from her (she may actually like Midnight) and she is kind of horrible to her entourage, the Yellows, and to Wink especially. But I never believed her as the villain. It's too clean, too easy. I was also not sure Wink was as good as advertised. She and Midnight were moving at a weird and very fast rhythm. Is it bad to say that I loved the scene in the woods where Wink kissed Poppy? She was completely taken by surprise and for a moment I truly saw them together... But then Poppy climbed into Midnight's bedroom and forced him into a plan of her own design to scare Wink... And I was also not so sure that Midnight was a hero... Maybe he is but he is not the fairy-tale hero Wink makes him out to be. Wink is the villain. In the few days since Midnight moved into the house across from her, she's shifted and twisted his mind. Poppy is far from good but Wink is right there with her. Wink played along with the prank Poppy had made Midnight set up for her, but then she turned the tables on her and, with Midnight's help, tied Poppy up to the grand piano. He knows how scared she is, remarked on that countless times in this part alone. And he still leaves her there, alone and scared, because Wink put in his head that he is a hero and Poppy is the monster he has to slay. I have news for you Wink: heroes are good and compassioned and can even help the bad guys, because that's what heroes do. They are good! They see people's flaws and don't hold it against them. They always reach a hand out. And Midnight was falling in that category just before Wink made him stop. And I hate that he did, I hate that he left Poppy alone, scared and screaming. No matter how bad she is. No one deserves to be forced to live their worst fear. The two of them fall asleep and leave Poppy there the entire night. She's almost dead in the morning... And she doesn't come back home, people think she's missing because they think she left notes and she only moves in the night, people don't see her, she even visits Midnight, often, and he never notices... Wink was horrible. I hate her. Wink was the one writing the letters. She smells like jasmine. And if Midnight wasn't so afraid and grief-stricken he would have properly noticed that. He gathers the Yellows and eventually gets Wink too and they do a séance, calling forth spirits, Poppy, from the beyond. And I don't care how different the writing style is, how very Poppy she sounds like, I don't trust her, I don't like her. The Yellows and Wink and Poppy and Midnight almost die at the Roman Luck house due to a fire that causes the collapse of the roof. But Poppy saves Midnight and Wink tells him the truth. She and Poppy were somewhat friends, or at least friendly when alone. It was Wink's idea to create the entire plot of this book and Poppy went along because she truly loved Leaf. And after Midnight goes to talk to Poppy, he confronts Wink. He is upset and has every right to be so. She finally, finally shows her true self, is real with him and not weird. She tells him about her dad and how he ran away in the middle of the night to the Roman Luck house and then left altogether when she saw him there. The Yellows move on with their lives. Thomas finds someone to love that loves him back. Zoe and Buttercup do what they did before, seemingly happy with their lives. Briggs starts living alone in the woods, following the path Poppy took. Sometime during the summer Midnight and his dad go to France, to see his mother and he doesn't say goodbye to Wink. He doesn't say anything. And I think it's because he doesn't need or want to. Things are alright. And Wink finds Briggs in the woods and the ending leaves things in the air, as a possible new story, without the convoluted craziness, takes its first step into the world. I didn't love this book, not even close. The premise was interesting and intriguing enough that I bought it, but the story itself was a disappointment. My book reviews are 99% of the times 5*, so this kind of low rating shows how disappointed I was in this book. For a supposed mystery it had no mystery. To be honest, it was kind of predictable, the characters lacked the je ne sais quois that makes them attractive and likeable to the reader, in my opinion. The only character that I truly liked was Poppy, because no matter how horrible she was described as I felt something else there. The story wasn't something that captured my attention, and that's sad because I really enjoyed Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. The only other thing this story may have had in its favour, other than Poppy, perhaps, and the fact that is a very short book (thank heavens, or it would have been a DNF, which I hate) is that it doesn't have chapters like I'm used to, it simply changes between the three characters every few paragraphs (or pages, in Midnight's case).