Take Me Home Tonight

By: Morgan Matson
Published Year: 2021
Publisher: Simone Schuter
Pages: 416

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Summary (Provided by Goodreads): Two girls. One night. Zero phones.

Kat and Stevie—best friends, theater kids, polar opposites—have snuck away from the suburbs to spend a night in New York City. They have it all planned out. They’ll see a play, eat at the city’s hottest restaurant, and have the best. Night. Ever. What could go wrong?

Well. Kind of a lot?

They’re barely off the train before they’re dealing with destroyed phones, family drama, and unexpected Pomeranians. Over the next few hours, they’ll have to grapple with old flames, terrible theater, and unhelpful cab drivers. But there are also cute boys to kiss, parties to crash, dry cleaning to deliver (don’t ask), and the world’s best museum to explore.

Over the course of a wild night in the city that never sleeps, both Kat and Stevie will get a wake-up call about their friendship, their choices…and finally discover what they really want for their future.

That is, assuming they can make it to Grand Central before the clock strikes midnight.

First Impressions

A new Morgan Matson book! Finally! I have loved all of Matson’s other books and it has been a while since she has written a new one. I added this book to my list without even reading the summary. The cover is cute, maybe not my favorite. The summary also sounded interesting and different from her others.

What I thought

While this isn’t one of my favorites by Matson, it was still a fun and enjoyable story that I flew through.

Kat is best friends with Stevie and they are in their senior year of high school. They are both theater kids but Kat is hoping to do theater in college. Being immersed in the theater world means that their life revolves around their castings. When the theater director decides to postpone posting the castings and Stevie’s dad cancels on her birthday dinner in the city, Kat and Stevie decide to go to New York City on their own for a night of adventure.

There was a lot that I loved about this story. I was a dancer growing up and was very immersed in the theater/performance world in high school. Reading about how Kat described being in the theater and the comradery after a performance brought me right back. The politics, the drama, the family, I related to all of it and it reminded me of things I had forgotten. I also related to living in a suburb outside of a big city. While Kat and Stevie live in Connecticut, a 45 minute train ride into New York City, I lived a 45 minute train ride outside of Chicago. I connected with the comfort yet the unfamiliarity of the big city.

What didn’t work for me was the third storyline. The story mostly alternated between Stevie and Kat’s perspectives starting once they got separated, which I enjoyed, but there was another storyline with their friend Teri that just seemed very out of place to me. I guess it added some comedy and broke things up but honestly, it didn’t add a thing to the story and actually pulled me out of the connections with Kat and Stevie.

One of the things Matson does so well is write relationships. Whether that’s friendships or families. The friendship between Kat and Stevie really shone in this story but I did feel like some of the family side that I love so much from her previous novels was missing. This book was just very different from what she usually writes and I don’t know if that’s because it doesn’t take place I summer or what it was. Overall, it was still a strong and delightful story and I look forward to talking about it with my friends.