Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - I Kissed Shara Wheeler

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

35 reviews

jjjreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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lighthearted 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? Yes

5.0

I seriously loved so many of the characters in this book. Chloe, Smith, Rory and at the end even Shara—which was surprising—were all my absolute favorites.

At first I wasn’t sure I’d like this story, kinda just seeing most of the characters as their stereotype, however, much like Chloe, I learned they were so much more. It was really nice to see so much queer rep with a small town setting (and in a typically queerphobic state as well).

I really enjoyed so many things about this book, Smith and his love for flowers, Chloe’s moms just being so adorable and wholesome the entire time, religious characters not shown in a totally toxic way, seeing the queen bee, popular girl, who everyone loved, not be as perfect as everyone thought, wanting to learn more about the side characters because they were that nice to read about, the humor was immaculate, and the ending was perfect; happy but leaving it open enough for the reader to have their own interpretation of some of the characters future. Not to mention the formatting and overall aesthetic of this book being absolutely stunning.

Good queer rep
Rivals to Lovers
Good Friendships
Wholesome Characters
Angst with a Happy Ending

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purplatypus's review against another edition

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funny hopeful mysterious 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

4.0

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emily_journals's review

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mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

I absolutely LOVED Casey McQuiston's past 2 books... and this one did not have the same standard as those two unfortunately. This book wasn't bad, but it definitely was not as good as Red, White, and Royal Blue or One Last Stop. Red, White, and Royal Blue didn't have the most incredible supporting cast, but the two main characters were so likeable and there was so much wit and humor in the book that it made up for the standard supporting cast. One Last Stop went a step further and took a lot of the whit and humor that shined in Red, White, and Royal Blue, and added an absolutely STUNNING supporting cast. This book... didn't have either of those things. Both of the main characters were.... awful? They weren't poorly written or characterized, but they both were genuinely not good people, and I could not find myself rooting for them. They're both mean to each other in the worst ways, and they are both equally as awful to their friends (Shara especially is really mean spirited and manipulative to everyone in her life). Additionally, I absolutely could not feel any chemistry between them. In addition, the supporting cast had the potential to be really incredible, but just ended up being somewhat uninspired aside from a few stand out characters. The plot was the main driving force of this book, which is not true of Red, White, and Royal Blue or One Last Stop (I would say both of those books are very much character driven books with a plot added on as a nice ribbon to tie everything together). The exception to this is Smith and Rory; they both had really good character arcs and were really shining characters (and almost all of the wit came from one of them). The mystery of WHERE IS SHARA WHEELER? also felt really unnecessary and superfluous. I think this story would have been just fine without the little scavenger hunt that takes up more than half the book (which is fully of inconsistencies and confusion). If McQuiston was really set on having this weird mystery, I think they should have done a lot more work on it, because it ended up being quite clunky and boring to read. I think this story would have faired much better if the clues and mystery and Shara just up and vanishing was replaced with something a little more believable and compelling. I get that the whole point of the letters was to get Chloe to talk to these people that she had subconsciously categorized as high school stereotypes with no substance, but I think the method to having Chloe discover this could have been handled a lot better to make the story more compelling.

Overall, this book was fine, but I found myself extremely disappointed with it because of how much I've loved McQuiston's previous works. This book was perfectly average, with (mostly) vanilla characters, and a dull plot, which is not a way I would describe either of McQuiston's previous works. I think that this book had a lot of important themes for younger readers, but I don't think it stands close to McQuiston's other works, and might recommend people to skip this one if they're reading it solely because they enjoyed those two books.

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ashylibrarian's review against another edition

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emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

So…I think I have an unpopular opinion on this one…I didn’t absolutely love and adore it.

I definitely did not dislike this book. There are some really amazing things that happen, but I think it was overhyped for me and just did not exceed my expectations.

One of the things that I think was really well done throughout the entire novel was the characters and their development. McQuiston does a really great job of giving each character a purpose and developing traits exactly where they needed to be developed. This is something that gave me strong feelings toward Shara and Chloe.

I have to be honest in saying that I don’t think I ever truly liked either of their characters. Again, this is not saying that they were written poorly by any means, I just didn’t love them. It is more in a sense of their actions and approach to the entire situation felt over-the-top and I don’t think I would particularly enjoy hanging out with them in real life. This could be ignorance on my end of not growing up in a small, very religious town, and maybe their actions were perfectly reasonable and expected.

I enjoyed the characters of Ash, Benji, Smith, and Rory

and was kind of stoked at the end when Smith and Rory finally admitted their feelings for one another.

All of the secondary characters added such a nice mixture to the story and created texture throughout the tension that was ever-growing between Chloe and Shara.

I do have to say that I was a bit confused at some points with the clues because I felt like I had missed a piece of them when the character(s) would read them.

The one that really got me was the clue where Chloe finds she needs to open the piano to get the next note. She read the note, took the action, and then said that she was going to use the key that Shara had left her. I went back to the page where Chloe read the note the first time and did not see any mention of the key…There were a few times I needed to do this and just kept feeling like I was missing small details.

The ending…wow the ending. I may not have loved all the clues and “mysteries” happening throughout, however, the ending was spectacular. The shining moment for Shara was when she spread the emails from her father around school and exposed the damage he had been inflicting on the community for years. And the coordination of the rebellion graduation was the icing on the cake. The entrance of Chloe’s mothers and Mr. Truman made me smile and give a little fist pump of excitement. It was a great way to end the novel by allowing each of the characters, Chloe and Shara, Rory and Smith, Ash and Benji, Brooklyn and the other supportive, emotionally exhausted students to push back against the oppression one last time. I wish I could have been there to give them all hugs and words of appreciation and encouragement for standing up to the religious-influenced rules plaguing their town.

I am looking forward to reading more by Casey McQuiston, I am definitely keeping this book on my recommendation list for interested readers, I just don’t think I’ll be chomping at the bit to read it again any time soon.

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author2223's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted relaxing 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

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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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studiouspoppy's review

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funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

3.75

It’s a really good YA book and I think it would have made my sixteen-year old-self really happy and hopeful, and it would have been really meaningful. Unfortunately, I read this at 24 and although it was funny and interesting, it was not that meaningful & it got way too dramatic for me.
I appreciated Chloe’s attitude and how she stood up for herself and for others, I think she’s very loyal and funny, and I love her relationship with her moms (it kinda reminded me of my relationship with my mom). She did get way to dramatic over nothing sometimes and that was annoying in my opinion.
I didn’t like Shara at all, I thought she was a psycho. I didn’t dislike her at the end, she got great development, but I didn’t love her either. Some of her changes felt sudden and rushed to me.
It got a little predictable at times, and the first 60% was a 3.25 for me. the last 0.5 goes for the ending because it felt really great, and for the character development of the secondary characters, because they felt like real people with their independent lives instead of just extras. Great representation!

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cozyreadsandcoffee's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

I think this book fell short of what I know Casey Mcquiston can do.

I think Chloe was almost too whiny and superficial to enjoy her journey. [Don't get me started on her valedictorian speech] I think I would have enjoyed this more if given the perspectives of Rory and Smith because having it from just Chloe's viewpoint became almost superficial.

I think also being in a small town, the seriousness of kids getting outed to their families was not as much as it should have been. It just seemed there wasn't much on this topic as I thought there would be.

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emilypete17'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

This book is like the chaotic queer lovechild of a John Green novel and all of your favorite coming of age movies from the past decade. Casey McQuiston knows just where to hit me to make me bawl my eyes out and snort-laugh every single page. I wish I had this book in high school, and I'm so glad there are other queer kids in the south who have it now and maybe will finally be able to see a piece of themselves on the page.

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