Reviews with content warning for Racism - Jeg har kysset Shara Wheeler

This was a modern, queer mystery, coming of age and romance all rolled into one. The plot was clever, the characters were deeply likeable (except for Shara and Chloe - but their unlikeability felt deliberate and understandable for me), and I felt hooked until the end with wanting to know what would happen.

I do think that Shara and Chloe's romance is more enemies than lovers, and it doesn't feel like the makings for any kind of stable, long-term relationship. This being said, I felt like it fit the trope and made sense to me in a high school love context.

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missrosymaplemoth's review against another edition

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3.25

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mallory10100's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

WOW i loved this book so much

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emmaciarciello's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny inspiring mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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hmatt's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I don't tread into YA high school-centred stories lightly, but I trust CMQ, and they delivered. This is a trope-y, current, cute, funny read. It's almost over-the-top in how ridiculous it gets, but that's teenagers, right? As long as I kept in mind that the story is told from a specific teenager's perspective throughout, I was into it. Plus, Natalie Naudus could narrate a shampoo bottle and I'd enjoy it.

So, so many of the secondary and tertiary characters are incredibly fleshed out and lovely - this is something this author is really good at. The main characters are also really fleshed out, but we're so close to them that I almost liked them less because we get to see all their flaws and bad qualities, as well.

Things that took me out of it a little but that I still enjoyed:

I can't believe I'm saying this but um,
everyone is queer? Like I love that. Dream world. But potentially too convenient in this small Alabama cluster of students.
- I was almost cheering when Shara revealed she really was just being a mean girl and trying to sabotage Chloe because I think that would have been an interesting turn of events to explore. I think Shara could have still had a redemption arc and she and Chloe still could have ended up friends. All the background pairings plus this main one were a bit too much for me.

Aforementioned: everything is so, so dramatic. I thought the middle bits were maaaaybe almost too drawn out - too many twists and turns. But like I said above, I found some peace with this by considering that we're getting all of our information from Chloe and not some omniscient narrator.

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neilibra's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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dododenise's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s Casey McQuiston, of course this book gets five stars.

This book was so much fun. A beautiful ya romcom, full of teenage drama, idiocy, passion, love and friendship. The cast of characters was wonderful. Everyone was so interesting and the whole group was diverse and fun. There were just a tad bit too many characters because I did loose track of them sometimes.
The representation in this was wonderful. Queer found family, or in this case a queer friend group, just makes me unbelievably happy. And the book kept getting queerer (is that a word? it is now). Watching them grow and become more confident in who they were was wonderful to read.

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anil's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

YES!!!
the vibes are like,, paper towns but wlw and more focus on friendship and religion. So like, already extremely good vibes.

And then it's SO fun, the main group is EXCELLENT, the foreshadowing made me want to SCREAM and Smith's

gender situation

made me fucking cry and then "it's hard" and I cried even more and theN "you'll always be my best" and I cried again and it's good!!

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