Rating: ⭐⭐⭐✨⬜
Title: I Kissed Shara Wheeler
Author: Casey McQuiston
Genre: YA Romance
Setting: Alabama
Month Read: May 2022
Book Type: Hardcover
Publication: 2022
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 355
TRIGGER WARNING-
Homophobia / Conservative Religious Hatred / LGBTQIA+ Sexual Content
"There was this one weekend, a million summers ago, when I sat on the shore drinking a frozen limeade, and I realized the only thing I wanted to look at was the way the sun hit the girls swimming in the lake. The problem has always been this: When I look at you, I taste lime, and I see light on water."
No Spoiler Summary (from Goodreads):
Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she’s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that’s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal’s perfect progeny.
But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes.
On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she’s not the only one Shara kissed. There’s also Smith, Shara’s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara’s trail of clues and find her. It’ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square.
Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe—probably not, but maybe—more to Shara, too.
Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.
Review:
I'm so happy Casey McQuiston finally jumped into the YA game, because honestly this is where I've felt she's belonged the entire time. This book was so well done in so many ways, the kids felt like kids, the kiss were so smart, the kids were so dumb in ways only teenagers can be, the kids were so inspiring.
Shara is a real Regina George type, and Chloe the not-quite Kady Heron? I loved their unspoken feud, for grades, for power, for each other (???) It added such a nice touch to the story, and I like that while we got a bow at the end, Casey leaves a lot un-answered.
THEATER KIDS, UNITE! A. HOW IS ANY SCHOOL DOING PHANTOM? WHO HAS A BUDGET LIKE THIS? Whatttt!? I loved the choir + theater kid rep, I loved that all the kids (except Ace, maybe?) were somewhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum in a school where you're supposed to be very (coughwhitecough) and straight. Suppression didn't seem like the best tactic, here, to get what they wanted. Oh, well.
The Religious bigotry was really triggering, and I'm not even from the South, or have gone to a Christian school. I think with everything going on right now with Roe vs. Wade & book banning, this just hit me in a way it wouldn't have a few years or months ago. I hope every gay kid in a red state gets their hand on this book so they can see that they deserve so much happiness, and like Casey writes, that they deserve rom-coms, too.
With all the bad characters in the book (like Mr. Wheeler), I am so glad for the choir teacher, and Chloe's Moms. There was some great good adult representation in this book, and I'm so glad that these kids had trusted adults they could turn to, in a world that feels very much against them. It was a real bright spot in this novel.
Overall, I really liked this book. I maybe should have read it directly after Book Lovers, but I'd love to see where Casey goes from here- she's got some great stories to tell, and I can't wait to read them. <3
Recommendation:
Simon and the Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
What If It's Us by Adam Silvera
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
"I have done some of the best work of my life because of you. And I know you have done some of the best work of your life because of me. I don’t know a better way to explain what love means to two people like us."