What a nonstop adventure this book was taking place in New York City and “it’s NY, who can say what’s going to happen?” Well,so much happens when Kat and Stevie lie to their parents and say they’re staying at a friend’s house for a sleepover. The girls are celebrating Stevie’s birthday,and Kat wants to see a play before the dinner. Through a series of mishaps, Kat and Stevie are separated, and neither has a cell phone. In the meantime, their sleepover friend becomes involved in something that isn’t what it seemed like in the beginning. Through their separation, Kat and Stevie meet boys, lose a dog, meet famous people, go to parties, and help someone do their many jobs. While separated the girls have time to reflect on their friendship after some mean things were said, and they realize what is truly important in their own lives. Do they get a chance to tell each other though?

Take Me Home Tonight is part Nick & Nora, part Sleepover-Meets-Hangover, and part Adventures in Babysitting, and somehow when you combine all of those things you get the heartwarming story of Kat, Stevie, and Teri.

I read this book in one sitting. I could not put it down. The characters were well-developed and easy to relate to. I loved the little nuances and details that made them feel like real teenagers, not the manufactured types of teenagers you'd see in the movies I listed above. I especially loved that friendship remained the central theme in this story, despite the romantic prospects for each of the girls.

Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Everything absurdity that you can imagine is thrown into this story, from escaping dogs to blistered feet at a fashion shoot in the MoMA to a rogue kidnapping plot over stolen diamonds in Canada. And they all work. Morgan Matson's biggest accomplishment in this book is making all of these absurdities feel like they could somehow happen, if the stars happen to line up in an exact pattern that one night.

I would say my one drawback to the story was that the early chapters are told from Kat's POV and it takes a little too long to get into Stevie's head, but once we do, and then get the bits and pieces of Teri's evening thrown in, the book really hits its stride and becomes one that you can't step away from until you know how it ends.

I can absolutely see this playing out as a fun film if adapted. I really enjoyed it, and will absolutely be recommending it to my listeners and followers!

I have been dying to read this book since it was announced so thank you NetGallery for giving me this ARC. I'm a huge Morgan Matson fan and this book did not disappoint. It included two awesome main characters who grew and changed throughout the book. As well as multiple whirlwind adventures most of which I would love to go on, one of them not so much (I'm looking at you Terri!). Also I loved the side characters especially the few who popped in from Matson's other books like Amy and Beckett. Lastly as a big theatre kid and a lover of NYC this book made me happy with all of its theatre references and made me miss the city and my own adventures there with it's descriptions of it. Overall, a super fun read that I will definitely be rereading in the future.

When best friends and high school theater kids Stevie and Kat head into Manhattan from the Connecticut suburbs one Friday night, they each have their own ideas of how the adventure will go. Kat plans to attend their drama teacher's play to convince him she's right for the next lead, while Stevie just wants to celebrate her birthday and forget that her dad canceled their plans. Tension building between them escalates thanks to a locked apartment, a broken phone, and accidental subway separation. What follows is a wild, unbelievable night and two very different treks across the city.

Morgan Matson's books are always so fun and vivid, and fans of her will love all of TMHT's meta references to her past work. Having grown up on Long Island, I totally related to Kat and Stevie's idolation of that first solo journey into the city and realization that a "grown-up" experience there involves more complexities than a kid's perspective. I thought both girls' POVs and internal conflicts were handled well, and the obstacles they faced were believable. In pandemic times, reading about their city adventures was definitely bittersweet.

On the other hand, I really disliked Teri's subplot and just how zany it became. I had kept up with Matson's creative influences on social media when she was writing this, so I caught on to the Adventures in Babysitting theme, but I don't think people would get it without that context. These parts just read like an entirely different book, and what with Kat and Stevie's chapters being so grounded in reality, Teri's sections just stood out in an unenjoyable way.

Overall, Take Me Home Tonight will be a perfect read for its May release date. Hopefully by then, cities will have taken more steps toward feeling normal again!

Take Me Home Tonight begins with the three main characters anxiously awaiting the King Lear castlist to be posted for the next high school play and Stevie’s Dad abruptly cancelling her special birthday dinner at a fancy New York restaurant. Stevie and Kat travel into the city (without their parents’ knowledge) in the hopes of enjoying Stevie’s dinner reservation and sucking up to their drama teacher by attending his secret production. However, their plans are foiled when they end up getting locked out of an apartment with a Pomeranian, losing their only cellphone, and getting separated on the subway. Meanwhile, their friend Teri has remained in Stanwich Connecticut to cover for Kat and Stevie; she ends up babysitting and going on a spontaneous road trip with a man who claims to be a CIA agent.

In this novel, Morgan Matson truly highlights the power of friendship and family (including stepfamilies) as well as the importance of being true to yourself and choosing to do what makes you happy. This book would be ideally suited for those who enjoy fast-paced novels filled with adventure, drama, and romance. It would also be an awesome read for people who have travelled to or want to travel to New York City; Stevie and Kat end up (unintentionally) doing a lot of exploring in the city!

I have read and enjoyed some of Matson’s previous novels and Take Me Home Tonight was written in a similar style, so it lived up to my high expectations. Firstly, I thought it was neat that some of the characters from Matson’s other YA novels (e.g. Amy from Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Gelsey from Second Chance Summer, and Beckett from Since You’ve Been Gone) made appearances in this novel! In a way, Take Me Home Tonight is almost like a sequel for these characters as we get some much-desired insight into what happened to these characters after their stories ended. Although, it is not necessary to have read Matson’s “Detours, Do-Overs, and Dares” collection before you read Take Me Home Tonight. I also liked how, even though Stevie and Kat are separated for most of the book, their individual adventures continue to (subtly) connect back to each other’s storylines and other events happening in the book.

To be honest, I didn’t really like Teri’s portion of the story and I could have done without it as the dangerous CIA mission wasn’t as fun to read about and it didn’t fit in well with Kat and Stevie’s exciting New York adventure. Another downside for me was the fact that things were sometimes repeated since the story was told from three different perspectives. Lastly, since the novel switched between three different storylines, I was frustrated by having to wait several chapters before finding out what happened next in certain storylines; for example, the chapters from Teri’s perspective are suspenseful, while also being few and far between.

Overall, Take Me Home Tonight was an enjoyable book to read with it being a fun tale set in New York City that is adventurous, easy to read, and focused on friendship!