Take Me Home Tonight

Gr 7 Up–After the cast list for the fall play isn’t posted and Stevie’s birthday night out with her dad is canceled, best friends and theater kids Kat and Stevie sneak off to NYC together unsupervised. When they run into Stevie’s stepsister at Grand Central she asks them to run a quick errand for her, but a comedy of errors lands them outside of her apartment with her dog but no key. Their quest to locate a spare key leads to more misadventures: Stevie’s phone falls on the subway tracks and is crushed, then the girls are separated, and Stevie is almost mugged. Their separate escapades over the next few hours, and more when they reconnect, are too fantastical to feel real. They meet celebrities, run into friends and relatives, and see multiple amazing sights. The friend maintaining their cover story back in Connecticut, Teri, ends up babysitting, then gets herself and the kids kidnapped and involved with the CIA. Stevie and Kat’s friendship feels solid, honest, and real. The events of the evening, however, feel contrived and false. Each character is carefully crafted and easily distinguishable, no small feat with the size of this cast. The writing is excellent and draws in the reader with details. Kat is white, Stevie has olive skin, and Teri has a Chinese surname.