MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT

Two high schoolers meet in the dreamworld.

Seventeen-year-old Aria Lendell has always been a hopeless romantic and inveterate daydreamer. But ever since something terrible happened to her identical twin, Cady, her imagination has lost its spark. Aria suddenly starts having lucid dreams at midnight; the fantastical settings offer a reprieve from reality. She shares the dreamworld with Strat Madigan, who attends St. Swithun’s, a boys’ prep school in nearby Sacramento. The white-presenting pair’s encounters at midnight, in daydreams, and in real life lead to the return of memories, complicating things even more. Aria and Strat realize they must have gotten memory erasures from Aracen Exradere. While this elective surgery is common for adults, it’s permitted for minors only in exceptional circumstances. Why and how did Aria and Strat erase each other—especially when their memories are the stuff of fairy tales? And why is the normally surefire ArEx procedure failing? As they piece together the puzzle, they confront the old and present versions of themselves. Using vividly descriptive prose, Bourne explores relationships, particularly the gaps between expectation and reality. Both leads have frequently capitulated to what others needed them to be at the expense of their real selves. Now that they have a second chance at love, they learn to embrace truth in all its messiness and manage relationships new and old, romantic and familial. The plot unravels slowly, with allusions and teases, but the story maintains a fast pace.

An emotion-filled, magic-tinged romance for dreamy types.