Take Me Home Tonight by Morgan Matson review!

Hi ForeverBookers, 

How are you all today? I hope you’re good!

I’ve just finished “Take Me Home Tonight” by Morgan Matson, which I buddyread with a friend. I had fun with this novel. It was an easy standalone to read, which wasn’t intense at all—perfect for summer! 

I read “Take Me Home Tonight” for a couple of Readathons. They were:

* Cardcaptor-a-thon - The Float - Read a contemporary...I note down below that I don’t read too many contemporaries. Even though I have several on this months TBR - who knew...

* My buddyread with my Canadian friend - She enjoyed the book too, and finished it much quicker than I did!

* Reading Rivalry for page points as I started it at the end of May!

Whatever-You-Want-A-Thon - Maddy (Book Browsing Blog on Youtube) is hosting a readathon this month with specific prompts. “Take Me Home Tonight” works as my “Cover With Your Team Colour On The Cover” as the authors name is orange and the cabs come across to me as a shade of orange.

*Popsugar Challenge 2021 - Book about do-overs or fresh-starts - It’ll spoil the book if I write exactly how this happens but one of our characters has an. epiphany - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mYi6s_yTaM.

There is bad language used, such as “s***” and “f***.” 

Spoilers Below

“Stevie Sinclair and I looked nothing alike—in fact, it was almost like we were opposites of each other. I was pale and freckled, she had olive skin that tanned perfectly, I was tall; she was petite; I had fine blond hair, Stevie’s was dark and wavy; I was lanky, she was curvy.”

We start the novel with our main characters, Kat and Stevie, who are both in the theatre department at their school in Connecticut, USA. (I’m British so I spell theatre with an “re” instead of an “er.” But in direct quotes from the book I’ll use the American spelling). Both Kat and Stevie are different from each other as the quote above suggests but they’re both VERY dedicated and devoted to their theatre programme, so devoted and dedicated in fact that they want good roles in the upcoming play of King Lear, Kat especially! I feel as if Kat was our main protagonist throughout the book, although from around the half way point we start seeing from Stevie’s POV too.

“By the time the bell rang, I was already halfway out the door. I didn’t look behind me as I hustled down the hallway of Stanwich High School, knowing I was missing last-minute assignments and instructions, but at the moment, not caring.”

This is how we meet Kat. She seems to be a bit obsessive here, and not over the right things necessarily. All she’s interested in is seeing the cast list for her school’s production of King Lear, the play that “Take Me Home Tonight” centres around. She wants to be cast as Cordelia, the lead female in the play. I, luckily studied King Lear at school, myself, so I knew the references, not that there were many to keep track of so you’d be fine to pick this book up if you’ve never read King Lear as well. When Kat gets to where the cast list normally is, with her best friends Stevie and Teri, she’s shocked to see that it’s not up yet. The theatre master, Mr. Campbell is still thinking about the roles and who would be best to play them apparently,“things aren’t as clear as I thought they’d be.”

I swallowed hard. What did that mean?” This shows Kat is concerned about her fate on the casting in King Lear. She thinks that if she shows Mr. Campbell just how committed she is to acting and performance she’ll have the role of Cordelia in the bag. She suggests that her and Stevie go to New York City to see Mr. Campbell’s new play to show they’re fully committed to theatre and to him, I guess. He’s their favourite teacher at the beginning of the book.  

“I was just thinking . . . ,” I said slowly, trying to figure out in real time what to say and what to leave out, “that we should go.”

“Go where? Teri’s house?”

“No. Well—kind of. Why don’t we go into the city?”

“To New York?” Stevie stared at me. “By ourselves?”

is how Kat suggests going to New York. She doesn’t tell Stevie about going to see Mr. Campbell’s play until after they get there! Stevie is shocked by Kat’s suggestion to go to New York but tags along anyway. I feel that Stevie didn’t really stand up for herself until half way through the book, when she finds out just why Kat wanted to go to New York City that night in particular. You’ll see when when I discuss it below. 

When they’re walking out of Grand Central Station after having just arrived in New York City, they run into one of Stevie’s stepsiblings, Mallory. Mallory comes across selfish and up herself, like she’s better than everyone else. 

“Stephanie?” We both stopped and looked over. There was a woman standing next to us, sunglasses perched on top of her head even though the sun was going down depressingly early now. She was squinting at Stevie, head cocked the side. “Is that you?” is how she’s introduced into the story from Kat’s POV. Kat, herself, has never met Mallory before so she isn’t sure who she is. 

Stevie’s real name is Stephanie, but she’s referred to throughout as Stevie. It’s only the adults that refer to her as Stephanie and they’re not really present in the grand scheme of things. This is a very teenage led novel. Adults will enjoy reading it but we follow older teenagers primarily. 

Mallory wants Stevie and Kat to go to her place and drop off her roommate’s wallet that fell into her purse before she left her apartment. They agree to do this, but that only opens up a can of worms for them and lots of problems happen for them along the way. For example, the first issue of many is Brad, Mallory’s dog, who is pictured on the back of the dust jacket to the hardcover book. He’s a really cute little Pomeranian but he still causes issues for the girls. When they get to Mallory’s apartment Stevie is scared when she sees what Brad is.  

“Well, that’s one mystery solved,” I said, straightening up, as the dog—Brad—started running in circles around my legs.

“What?” Stevie asked, not moving from where she was still pressed against the counter. For someone who really tried to pretend she wasn’t afraid of dogs, she wasn’t doing a great job of it.

“That’s Brad,” I said, pointing to the dog. He immediately stopped running and sat, like he was showing us just how well he knew his name. 

“That’s Brad?” Stevie said, then frowned. “I guess now that does make a little more sense—that he would cry when we left.”

“You might want to tell Mallory that she should use a few more specifics when talking about her dog.”

“Seriously,” Stevie said. “Also, Brad? For a dog’s name?” 

“And this dog doesn’t even look like a Brad.”

Kat is FINE around dogs. Stevie, however, doesn’t like them to begin with. Does she get over her fear? How? You’ll have to read to find out! I found Brad and Stevie’s relationship amusing. It added an extra bit of humour to the story that was needed I feel. 

Another issue that crops up for the duo is phones or lack thereof. Kat left her phone at Teri’s so that if her parents tracked it, they’d see she was there, where she’s meant to be for the night. Stevie took hers into the city so they’d have some way to contact someone if they needed help. However, when they get into a big argument at the subway station, they lose Stevie’s phone too!

“We can still find Mateo, right?” I asked. If we couldn’t what were we going to do with the dog? We couldn’t show up to a theater with a dog in tow. “Do you remember his address?”

“Why is that my responsibility?”

“Um.” I stared at her, wondering why this needed to be spelled out. “Because he’s your stepbrother, and I don’t have a phone.”

“Well, I don’t have one either now, thanks to you!”

“How is it my fault? It was an accident—”

“You were the one who said we should come into the city tonight—and now my phone is destroyed. And yet somehow, it’s still, magically, not your fault. Because nothing ever is!”

“What does that mean?” I snapped back. Why was Stevie acting like we weren’t in this together?”

is from the argument where they lose Stevie’s phone. This is one of a few arguments the girls have. I’d say this one was the worst of them, though. Kat drops the phone but doesn’t own up to that until later in the novel. Kat was definitely at fault but she doesn’t see that here. She’s so annoyed with Stevie. All she wants to do, her biggest concern is to get theatre to watch Mr. Campbell’s play to try and secure her role in King Lear! Kat thinks Stevie is to blame because Mateo, Stevie’s stepbrother, who’s meant to be helping them find and get Mallory’s keys so they can drop Brad, the dog back at her apartment, which locked because they let the door shut without anyone being inside to reopen it, isn’t easy to pin down. Can they find him, drop Brad back and see the play? You’ll need to read to find out!

They get separated at this point, as Stevie gets on the train and Kat misses it because someone walks in front of her at the wrong time. Stevie thinks Kat is to blame for this as well, as she didn’t see someone walk in front of her. She thinks that because Kat was cross about being blamed for losing the phone, that she didn’t want to have to deal with Stevie anymore...is this true? You’ll need to read to find out!