A couple of weeks before graduation, boarding school good girl Lily receives an invitation from the schools' "Jester" to help with the senior class prank. When it turns out the Jester us actually her ex-boyfriend, Tag, old feelings resurface.

I'm giving this one a 3.5 ⭐️

This was a very cute and fun little read. It had the same spirit as Walther's previous book (The Summer of Broken Rules), but I think it was a step up technically. This is one of those YA books that I wish I had read at 15, because I have no doubt I would have been obsessed with it. I think the YA audience is going to love it.

That being said, I did have a few things that bothered me with this one. First, the author used an incredible amount of pop culture references. I know some people love a good reference in their books, but personally, it kept taking me out of the story.

Second, the school felt a little unrealistic. I loved the idea of a boarding school setting, but this place had everything! An observatory, a sculpture garden, a ropes course, and entire fleet of security Priuses (and more!). Maybe it's just me, but it felt a little fantastical.

Lastly, the book started out super slow, and most of the character development was shoved into the last few chapters of the book. It just felt a little rushed and I would have loved to have seen more of it happening during the "before" part of the book.

Nonetheless, I still enjoyed this read overall and would definitely recommend to any YA readers.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Such a great teen novel! I really enjoyed Lilly and Tag. I would recommend this for depending on the situation for teens and adults alike! Lilly was very relatable to me since I also focused on school all through high school.

I loved this book! After reading The Summer of Broken Rules, there was a similar vibe in this book. It was a really good book. In the beginning, it was very slow. As the story progress, I couldn't put the book down. So many things happen everywhere. In the end, it was a bit rush. It would be nice to explore more of their relationships. The mom was such a badass! Again, it was a good book!


K.L. Walther does it again!

Thank you to K.L Walther, NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the eARC! Loved it!

I thought the premise and the setting of this book was so cute! I loved the boarding school setting, going on the adventure with the characters as they plotted their senior prank and of course the Taylor swift references <3. I really felt like I was at the boarding school with the beautiful way it was described. However, I feel like I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I wanted to because a lot of the story was flashbacks. I felt like I just had to assume a lot about the characters. The pacing of the book felt a bit weird at times and I do wish there was a bit more character development in the present time between the characters aside from them completing the prank because I felt like it all got squeezed into the ending. I definitely feel like I would have loved this if I was a bit younger. Overall though it was a quick, sweet YA coming of age story!

thank you so much to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an arc!!

3.5 ⭐️

I was so excited for this arc because I absolutely LOVED the summer of broken rules by this author, but I was a little disappointed by this book. My disappointment might’ve come from the small book slump I was in while reading this, but it didn’t help that the book was quite slow paced at times. That said, it wasn’t a bad book by any means. It had lovable characters and an interesting setting and plot. I loved that the main boy character had diabetes, I’ve never read a book with that representation before!

K.L. Walther does it again!

I absolutely loved The Summer of Broken Rules and am so thrilled that What Happens After Midnight didn’t let me down. Walther writes in such an engaging way, it was impossible to tear myself away from the story and I binged it in half a day.

I absolutely loved the premise of this one and thought it helped push the story along really well. I liked that the side characters kept coming in and out of the story, giving the author lots of room to explore the relationship between Lily and Tag. Despite having broken up a year earlier, you could feel the mutual pining threaded through the entire story.

I loved Lily’s relationship with her mom, and honestly? Just her mom in general. I hope when I am parenting teenagers, I can be as badass as she is. Her and Josh’s steady presence throughout the story was such a balm to the calamity of scavenger hunt hijinks!

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for the advanced e-copy. I can’t wait to add this one to my shelves when it releases this summer!

This was such a FUN story! The scavenger hunt and pranks set at a boarding school hit all the right notes and I thoroughly enjoyed the tension and suspense of will they or won’t they get caught.

If the “Life and Death Brigade” had existed at Chilton, I could totally see this happening. And Lily and Leda gave off strong Lorelai and Rory vibes which I LOVED. I also really loved how honest Lily and Leda’s mother daughter relationship was. Throughout the story, they maintained an open dialogue where they could both express and discuss concerns and life, which you could tell was the result of Leda providing Lily with a safe space built on respect and love that was free of judgment.

While the Lily and Tag are the main characters, I thought the supporting cast of characters were brilliant and such well developed, clever, and delightful individuals who were central to the overall plot. The characters weren’t just likable, they were lovable, and I appreciated Tag and Lily’s growth and how they learned to work through their miscommunication and insecurities and came to a place where their relationship would be healthy and built on a foundation of trust and understanding.

Overall, I found this book such a delight to read and the characters so endearing!

This was a sweet, fun story.

I liked Lily and her mom’s super close relationship. They reminded me of the early days of The Gilmore Girls.

Lily goes to boarding school but lives in a house on campus with her teacher mom. Lily has always gotten good grades and been well behaved. After all, Lily has grown up on her school campus. She’s actually shocked when she gets invited to participate in the senior prank. Lily has no idea why someone would choose a good two shoes like herself to help carry out the prank. She assumes it’s because her mom has keys to everything. But she wants to have a little fun before she graduates and so she agrees.

Lily almost changed her mind when she realized the jester pulling the prank is her ex-boyfriend Tag. Lily might have broken up with him but she’s never gotten over him.

Working in close corners with Tag to pull of the prank brings all of her feelings to the surface.

Lily and Tag are pretty adorable together. I thought it was cute how he called her Hopscotch. I also really liked the character Alex. This story also has a main character with diabetes and you don’t see much of that in books. I think that would be very nice for someone with diabetes to have a character like Tag to relate to.

I really loved this author’s previous book The Summer of Broken Rules. That book gave so many summer vibes. I enjoyed this book too but I’d recommend that one quicker.

I got to read an early ebook edition from NetGalley. Thank you!

Rating: 4 stars ⭐️

I heard so many good things about the author and was so grateful to receive this arc! ☺️

This is a second chance young adult book about Lily and Tag. She broke up with him but still has feelings for Tag that she tries to ignore at first. She gets anonymous e-mails/notes about an end-of-the-year prank and chooses to participate.

I really wanted to find out who The Jester was and what the prank was about. I just couldn't stop reading because the pining and suspense were next level!

Thank you to K.L. Walther, Sourcebooks Fire and Netgalley for providing me with this arc. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc !
The Summer of Broken Rules is one of my favorite books that I read in 2022 so I was ready to read K.L. Walther’s new book. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I was able to get an arc <3
This book is so cute !!!! All you need to know is second chance + boarding school senior prank + friendship. I loved reading this story and I was as curious as Lily to know what prank they would pull, what clues The Jester created and how they would manage to do everything after midnight !
All the references made me fall more in love with the book, there are tons of mentions of Taylor Swift and Schitt’s Creek ! And I can’t forget to tell you how beautiful and amazing was to read the relationship between Lily and Leda (Lily’s mom) and also Josh!
I hope everyone loves Lily and Tag just like I did <3

I adore K.L. Walther and how these characters take me back to my high school days and remind me of all of the good moments that came with them. A senior prank and second chance romance make for the perfect story line.

Setting: Rhode Island
Rep: T1 diabetic love interest

Listen. I love Taylor Swift. She's literally the only artist I've listened to for the last 6 months. But all the Taylor references in here felt heavy handed, cringey, and way out of place. You can allude to a song or a reference without using all the titles as bits of dialogue that don't even fit! It really sucked because it totally pulled me out of the story. I didn't like the protagonist which didn't help. I didn't feel she had her own distinct personality; the voice wasn't there for me. A lot of the descriptive parts felt a bit too informative and clinical (like when she is talking about Tag's insulin pump and suddenly sounds more like a bluff then an eighteen year old. This just wasn't it for me.

Aw I love this YA story! It follows Lily and Tag - childhood friends-lovers-strangers. A young second-chance romance is sweet. Lots of pining, and it shows all the tribulations of young love. Really sweet. This book takes place at a boarding school and has a ton of Taylor Swift references ;)

Review in progress and to come.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

When I received this arc I was soooo excited! I’d read The summer of broken rules last year and absolutely loved it, so I knew this would be one I’d enjoy.

While YA isn’t always my first pick in genre, Walther does it so so well and if she writes it I will read it!!

This story follows Lily & Tag, childhood friends to lovers to strangers. Second chance romance is one of my all times, and the pining in this one is off the charts. You can’t help but root for them both to make it through the trials and tribulations of young love.

Not only does this book tell a wonderful story of romance, but one hell of an adventure too. Set on the grounds of a boarding school, what happens after midnight is extremely entertaining.

Oh and of course, my favourite thing about Walther’s stories is picking up on Taylor Swift Easter eggs (I counted 43 but am sure I missed a few!)

Overall, I absolutely recommend this one and eagerly await her next 🫶🏻🫶🏻

This was a cute YA read! I really enjoyed the first book by K.L. Walther and was so excited for this one because the plot felt so different than a lot of other school-related stories out there. I'm completely obsessed with the amount of Schitt's Creek references in the entire book, and Swifties will love all the Taylor references too. At first I wasn't sure if I would like the romance plot line between Tag and Lily, but I ended up being all for it! The way the setting was written made me feel transported into the school campus and I loved that the entire plot happened over only a few days. Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC!

This is an adorable concept and ya book! My high school never had any elaborate pranks on the day we graduated so to read a book about the hijinks of a boarding school senior prank feels almost nostalgic for a reality i never had.

This book has like an absurd and wonderful amount of taylor swift and pop culture references

I’ve never really read second chance romances but this is the first one I enjoyed with characters whose reason for separating felt quite real.

It’s a very simple story with not much depth. Often times pacing can feel off with flashbacks and though some of the flashbacks are truly wonderful, i wish it was easier to distinguish when one starts and ends.

Thank you netgalley for the ARC! I was so happy to read another book from KL Walther after loving The Summer of Broken Rules! This book was cute for a young adult romance. I really liked Tag's and Alex's characters and their friendship/ bromance but wasn't completely fond of Lily's character in the beginning. The first 25% of the book was a bit slow but after that, the book picks up and it was a fast read! I would definitely recommend to someone who likes second chance romance! Overall this was a cute young adult romance and I will be reading more of KL Walther's books in the future!

I absolutely loved "the summer of broken rules" so I was really excited to read this book. And let me tell you: it did not disappointed.
The story was super cute, the characters were funny and amazing and the taylor swift references were just amazing!!! I also really liked how one of meredith's friends were in this book and it had another little reference to some of her family members. One thing I really like about k l walther books is that she writes in a way it feels like it takes a long time for the characters to solve their problems when in reality the whole thing it happened in a short period of time (this is not a thing I usually like in books but she makes it work). And how she wrote the whole dynamic between lily, tag and alex!!! it was amazing.
The only thing I didn't really liked was how little we saw of lily's group of friends and I just wanted to see more of tag, josh and leda's dynamic.
But overall it was a great book and I would definitely recommend it.

I received this book as an ARC for my honest opinion. Thank you to NetGalley, Sourcebooks Fire, and K.L. Walther for the opportunity to read and review!

I loved the second chance romance story line between Lily and Tag. I really enjoyed that this book had representation of Type 1 Diabetes and that this as addressed throughout the book; this is not something that you often see, and I found that it was wonderful to see the compassion from Lily at those times.

I am rating this book 4 stars because I would have liked a little more character development. I felt that some of the character building was lost due to the story line moving so quickly. I also would've liked to have a little more at the end of the book to see how things progressed! The ended was a little abrupt, but overall still really enjoyed the book!