Chloe Green has been attending Willowgrove Christian Academy after her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama. For the last four years, she’s been doing her best in a place that doesn’t accept people for who they are. The only thing that’s kept her going is winning valedictorian. However, a month before graduation, her rival, prom queen Shara Wheeler kisses her and disappears. In a hunt to find Shara, Chloe finds herself in an unlikely alliance of others Shara has also kissed. Finding her will be worth it if Chloe can beat her in front of everyone fairly.
In my search for good romance books, I found out exactly how picky and critical I am. I love the romance genre. However, I constantly find that I expect a lot from everything I read. Most of the time, I want to be stimulated. Most romance books I stumble across don’t do that for me.
Take The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas for example. Catalina’s sister is getting married. Due to the fact that her ex boyfriend is going with someone, she says she will bring along her American boyfriend. The problem? She’s very much single. Her coworker, Aaron, agrees to go with her and pretend to be her boyfriend in exchange for something. However, Catalina hates him for something that happened in the past. This leads to them eventually falling in love.
This sounds like a great plot. However, I rated it one star. Why? Because things were done and there were no consequences. The romance was surface level and unbelievable. There was no chemistry between the characters. Also, it attempted to be an enemies to lovers and a fake dating story. Both of these tropes are amazing, yet they fail in this romance. It doesn’t help that big themes are glossed over and are only there to be there.
Casey McQuiston is the first romance author that I can say I love. They write everything I’m looking for in a romance. After years of searching for a good romance, I found an author who, after reading their debut, I knew I would continue to read their books.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler is McQuiston’s debut YA romantic comedy. It’s amazing. I have nothing but praise for this book. There’s so much it does well. This is coming from someone who doesn’t read a lot of YA romance. I read a lot of YA fantasy with romantic plotlines, but not exclusively romance.
The pacing and writing of this book is amazing. McQuiston writes in third person present, but it’s limited to our main character. I have mixed feelings about third person writing, but I like this style. It’s not distant like most third person writing I read. It feels like reading first person.
The characters are very well developed. They’re real teenagers with real experiences. Their actions make sense with their circumstances and personalities. It also makes sense with their age.
The themes are explored and given enough time to develop properly. In their books, McQuiston constantly explores family dynamics, friendship, and other themes. This book is no different. This is especially done well because the characters are teenagers. They’re just leaving high school and about to become adults.
Overall, this book is wonderful. For a YA debut, it’s better than I expected. I think I still prefer their adult romances, but I love this all the same. I rated it five stars. So far, I’ve rated every book McQuiston has written five stars. They deserve every star and I can’t wait to see what they write next.
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