by Clare Osongco
Fans of Susan Lee and Dustin Thao will be enchanted by this soulful YA romance about how we love, how we heal, and how we find the strength to go on.
"Where were you thinking of going?"
"Nowhere."
"Great," he says lightly, putting the car in gear. "Then we'll go there."
Seventeen-year-old Deedee's life is full of family ghosts and questions she can't ask. She longs to escape her stifling home, 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.
"Deedee's mother's verbal abuse, often repeated in Deedee's own self-hating thoughts, weighs heavily. Racism, microaggressions, and internalized racism are prevalent throughout; the teens live in a predominately white town and have family histories of war and immigration. A romance steeped in an emotionally gut-wrenching tale of trauma." —Kirkus Reviews
"An emotionally gripping debut novel that shines with hope, even through its traumas and trials." —School Library Journal
This information about Midnights With You was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Clare Osongco is a biracial Filipina American writer living in Los Angeles. Midnights With You is her debut novel. She enjoys mangos with bagoong, mechanical keyboard sounds, and writing super early in the morning when it's easier to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Find her online at www.ClareOsongco.com.

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