Take Me Home Tonight Review

This is my second Morgan Matson book! This first book I ever read from her was Since You've Been Gone back in 2021 or 2022, which I really liked. Did I like this book, too? Well...

Take Me Home Tonight is about two best friends: Kat and Stevie. They are both passionate about theatre. Their school's theatre department will be putting on King Lear by William Shakespeare, but for some reason, their theatre director, Mr. Campbell, doesn't put the cast list up on Friday like he usually does. The girls can't understand why, but Kat finds out that down the road in New York City, he will be putting on a play that same Friday night that he wrote himself. Kat decides in order to show Mr. Campbell what a great student she is and to get the role of Cordelia in the play, she and Stevie will go watch his show. 

The thing is, that Friday night, Kat gets called to babysit some kids. She decides to lie to her parents that she's going to go babysit as usual, but she instead gets another friend named Teri to do it. Just so her parents won't track her down to see where she really is, she decides to leave her phone with Teri, too. Teri decides to lie to Kat's parents that she is just helping out. 

But when Stevie and Kat arrive in New York City, so many things start to go wrong! First, their plan gets interrupted when Stevie's stepsister, Mallory, asks them to return something to her apartment. But Kat mindlessly leaves all of their own belongings in Mallory's apartment, and the girls get locked out along with Mallory's pet dog named Brad. They then go to the front desk to ask to unlock the door, but the guy at the front desk, named Carey, who is around the girls' age (whom Kat later falls in love with), says only his uncle can do it, but his uncle is out and doesn't know when he will be back. 

Kat and Stevie try to get to the play, anyway, while walking Brad. But then they get into a bit of a fight which results in Stevie accidentally dropping her phone on the subway tracks. They also get separated while on the Subway. Now that they are separated and without their phones, each girl goes on her own journey. Stevie to get extra keys from either her stepsiblings or stepmother to get into her stepsister's apartment and go home, and Kat trying to get to the play while helping Carey with his various odd jobs. Both girls also start to question their own futures, too: with Stevie realizing she'd rather do theatre for fun and Kat realizing she can have other hobbies aside from theatre. 

This post is already as long as it is, so let's just say I gave this book 4 stars. Yeah, this book was a wild ride! It was so weird and unrealistic at times, but it was also a book I could not put down. There were some minor problematic things and things that annoyed me, but the characters were mostly likable and their struggles were so relatable. I definitely like Since You've Been Gone so much more. Speaking of which, there are cameo appearances and mentions of characters from that book. I think all of her books take place in the same universe.

For Take me Home Tonight, I guess I can say it's a fun book if you don't take it too seriously. I bet you have some books where you feel that way, too!