Until Friday Night

About Until Friday Night

Until Friday Night is the first novel in Abbi Glines' Field Party series, published in 2016 by Simon & Schuster. The series is set in Lawton, Alabama — a small Southern town where high school football is the center of social life, and where the field parties after Friday night games define the teenage social world. The series follows the interlocking stories of a group of teenagers over several volumes, each centering on a different couple while maintaining the larger cast.

The first novel introduces Maggie, a girl who stops speaking after witnessing a traumatic event involving her father. She has been sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Lawton, where she enters a high school environment she has no context for. West Ashby is the town's star quarterback — the golden boy whose path and Maggie's seem entirely separate. The novel traces the slow, unexpected connection between them, built through West's patience with Maggie's silence and Maggie's gradual re-engagement with the world around her.

Glines established the Field Party series as a companion to her earlier Rosemary Beach series, following a generation of Southern teens whose family histories are often complicated. The Lawton, Alabama, setting grounds the series in a recognizable world of Friday night lights, pickup trucks, and the particular social hierarchies of small-town high school — familiar enough to be accessible and specific enough to feel real.

The Field Party Series

Until Friday Night introduces the extended cast that drives the subsequent novels: the Ashby family, the group of athletes and their social circle, and the dynamics that will be challenged and reconfigured as the series progresses. Each subsequent volume picks up a different pair from within this world, allowing Glines to explore grief, trauma, class, and social pressure through multiple perspectives without resetting the world with each book.

Why It Has Been Challenged

Until Friday Night has been challenged and removed from school libraries for its sexual content and mature themes, including the depiction of trauma and its aftermath. Glines' novels are written for older YA and New Adult readers, and critics have argued their content is more appropriate for older audiences than the high school settings of her stories might suggest. The series as a whole has been targeted alongside individual volumes in library challenges across multiple states.