Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - I Kissed Shara Wheeler

This book was absolutely brilliant. Highly recommend the audio book. Per usual Natalie Naudus did an outstanding performance with this book. Her range in characters, tone and just over all performance was phenomenal and made the book that much better.

For anyone who loved Paper Towns by John Green, this book is for you. We follow Chloe who is about to be valedictorian of her small Alabama senior class, extremely capable and most importantly was recently kissed senselessly by the perfect, intolerable, princess Miss Shara Wheeler. Who within the last 24 hours has disappeared.

Chloe goes to Shara's house to confront her only to find Shara's next-door neighbor Rory also looking for Shara... because she kissed him too. The cunning and quick-witted Shara has left letters for them all over town to figure out where she is.

Realizing they need to work together to find Shara, Chloe and Rory start piecing together the clue to the next letter, which leads them to Shara's boyfriend, and ex-best friend of Rory's, Smith. Together they slowly figure out where Shara has gone, and why in the hell she left these puzzling letters for them. Does Shara have an over arching plan or is this just another ploy for the Queen bee of the school to get more attention.

I Kissed Shara Wheller is a story about being your true self when the people and place you love the most tell you not to be, and also learning to love that person.Casey captured the essence of high school to a tee. I CRIED TOO MANY TIMES! To date this is McQuiston's best work.

cw/tw
Severe warning for religious trauma because this is in the south
homophobia
emotional abuse
slight bullying

Content Warnings

bookcrushin's review

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funny lighthearted mysterious 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

5.0

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melaniereadsbooks's review

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adventurous emotional 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

Thank you to Wednesday Books for an arc of this one!

Casey McQuiston has done it again with this sapphic academic-rivals-to-lovers romcom about an absolute disaster of a girl and her journey to prove that Shara Wheeler is not who she claims to be.

I am not going to lie and pretend I don't identify at least a little with Chloe Greene. She's an absolute disaster and so determined and really reminds me of myself when I was younger. Shara is also so interesting and complicated and I love how well this dove beneath the surface of the perfect dream girl and really got to the root of her.

The best part about this book is the side characters! Smith is truly the MVP for me. I love him so much and would pay a lot of money for McQuiston to write a book about him!

You will love this book. I don't care who you are or what you like, there will be something for you!

Content Warnings

librariangeorgia's review

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hopeful 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

4.5

I'm a big fan of McQuistons' previous books, ONE LAST STOP and RED, WHITE AND ROYAL BLUE. So this book was an automatic 'must-read' for me.

I honestly didn't realise that this was classed as YA and the previous books were classed as adult - I thought they all came under the YA category. Saying that, I thought it was very well written for a YA book from someone who's only written for an adult audience.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this book as I expected that I would.

I thought that Shara was an absolute bitch at the start, but when the reasonings were revealed, I started to like her more. My favourite was Chloe though - I loved her no-nonsense personality and her need to protect her friends. I loved her friendship group - I just wanted everything to work out in the end and for everyone to be happy!

I didn't realise how big of a part the religious bigotry and homophobia would play in this story. It was such a fun, joyful read despite this heavy topic.

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bookstarbri's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted 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

I'll admit, I was nervous. Not because I don't trust Casey McQuiston to create a wonderful story with depth and amazing characters (they have proven by now that they are perfectly capable of doing this). But going from adult (even New Adult) to YA can be challenging for some authors. Some authors simply write younger characters and think that's all YA is when it's far deeper than that. YA is not a genre for every author to tackle.

That said, Casey McQuiston tackled it and did so beautifully. The story itself is so fun, the characters are BRILLIANT, the setting and the themes were all so important and handled very well. And with each book I read from Casey, I learn just how talented they are at creating characters that anyone can find themselves in somewhere. Chloe Green, for instance, is our disaster bi MC who is so funny and has so much heart. Smith Parker is this gloriously sweet and kind boy (who, frankly, I would die for) and then Rory is a disaster gay but a disaster gay who cares SOO much but everyone believes he doesn't. And then there is the other friend group with Georgia, Benjy, and Ash, who are such vital pieces to Chloe's story while also shining individually as well. Even Shara, who we don't meet right away, is a wonderfully complex character who I couldn't help but to love even through all of her...interesting techniques at capturing a certain someone's attention.

This story deals with small towns and living in the Bible Belt as a queer teen and friendship and identity and finding community. As someone who has dealt with religious trauma and intolerant communities within the church, I felt so seen in this book. One thing that kept me from giving it a full 5 stars was that I wished the story would've gone just a teeny bit deeper into the religious trauma/growing up in church aspect and how it related to Shara especially. Shara had clearly gone through a lot in this regard and this was discussed briefly but I think even just a few more pages highlighting how Shara has grown to have her own spiritual relationship separate from her parents would've been nice. And thinking about it more, I think we needed more Shara in general. The first half had very little of her and that made it challenging to care about her at first even with all the characters being connected because of her.

Anyway, I felt so much nostalgia reading this and wished so desperately that every queer kid living in these kinds of environments had/have queer friends who support each other like this. But Casey has kind of given us that in these characters. I can't rave about them enough. And the romance in this is fun as well, though I think the friendships took the spotlight completely.

Thank you to Casey McQuiston for writing this gem of a book. It's beautiful beyond measure. Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

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riella_reads's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted 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

5.0

Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for giving me an advanced copy for my honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated reads for 2022 so I'm really happy to have gotten a chance to read this before it released. I enjoyed this as much as I expected and MORE. Because I had no idea what I was getting myself into when picking this up. I havent been the biggest fan of YA recently, and if I pick one up it needs to have strong LGBTQ representation for me to be interested. This gave me all the happy feelings of love and friendship that I saw in One Last Stop. I loved the fun mystery element that was in this and it kept me turning the pages.

I used to love John Green books in high school, and this reminded me so much of Paper Towns, but I will say this was done so much better. Better characters, better development, and a much more satisfying resolve. And of course it's gayer.

This comes out May 3, 2022.

Content Warnings

betweentheshelves's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful 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

Everything that I said in my review back in January still stands in this re-listen! Given the current climate of LGBTQ book bannings, this book is so important. About a group of queer teens carving themselves a place where they might not otherwise be accepted. So many of Chloe's fellow students aren't out, so she's able to be a shield for those that don't feel safe to be out yet. There's just so much to love about this book, and I think everyone should read it!
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Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an advanced copy of this to review! Casey McQuiston is absolutely one of my all-time favorite authors, and she’s written a YA! What isn’t to love? This is absolutely one of my most anticipated books of 2022. I am so happy to say that it lived up to the hype.

Best known for Red, White, & Royal Blue, McQuiston’s writing definitely lends itself well to a YA audience. McQuiston has a knack for writing great casts of characters that you fall in love with almost from the beginning. This is the cast for Shara Wheeler as well. What’s great about this book in particular is that none of the characters are who they were at the beginning of the book, in the best way possible. Growing up in this highly conservative, christian setting, this book is very much about finding yourself and finding a way to be yourself, even if everyone around you doesn't want you to be.

I said this when I originally posted my review on Goodreads, but this book is like a mashup of Footloose, Mean Girls, and Paper Towns. In like the best way possible. Maybe throw a little Breakfast Club in there. You get wrapped up in Chloe’s obsession to find Shara, but you also see how her journey to find Shara changes her. And how it changes Smith and Rory (arguably the best plotline, but that’s all I’ll say here). Once events really start to pick up, it’s difficult to put this book down.

I’ve seen some critiques for this book saying that Chloe is a bit selfish, which she is. She’s very much wrapped up in her own world for most of the book. But also, that’s the point? This is such a teenager thing, and it fit so well for Chloe’s character and her character arc. I am here to say we should no longer rate YA books down for portraying teenagers as accurate teenagers.

Anyway, it’s hard for me to rank McQuiston’s books, but I know that this one will absolutely make it on my re-read list. Which reminds me, I should re-read Red, White, & Royal Blue. It’s been too long.
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This is like a combination of Footloose, Mean Girls, and Paper Towns, in the best way. I got to that second half and I couldn't put it down! Stay tuned for a full review to come next week.

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