A review by magenta_menace
Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable

3.5

i have mixed feelings about the content of this book, but the art style and emotional structure hit really close to home for me, so it skewed my review a little bit more positively. the pacing of the book was a bit uneven, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, and at times the content was just a tad too dense. amanda was a remarkable protagonist, and based on my own upbringing, i related to her quite a bit. i have to say, in regards to the queerness of the narrative, i wish that the depictions of trans identity weren’t so much of a caricature. part of me was really, really rooting for amanda and laura to end up together, just because i felt that their chemistry was the strongest of anyone in the novel. i think that the direction the author went was a nice subversion, but i personally think that the story would have made much more sense if the person amanda was grappling with feelings for was laura. could also just be me projecting my personal experiences onto the text, but the direction the plot went felt so forced and that tenderness was just not there with cat like it was with laura. good illustrations, good hero, good message—just fell a tad flat for me in some places.