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A review by emoverhere
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
5.0
Casey McQuiston is magic.
For a very long time, maybe five or six years, I stopped reading almost completely, I’d average three books on a good year. Zero on a bad one, and it completely broke my heart, because I grew up on books, my mom read them to me, and as soon as the weird shapes on paper made sense to me, I could not let go of books. They were my whole life, my constant friends, and the place I escaped to when things got hard. And I truly thought that lost.
Until I discovered Casey McQuiston, specifically One Last Stop, and it reminded me exactly why I loved reading in the first place. It was the first book in years that made me feel that flutter only books could give me, the way they wrote their characters, constructed their worlds, built their stories—it was all right, and I fell right back in love with books.
I was frankly terrified when CMQ announced that their next project would be YA, because forcing myself to read that genre had been one of the reasons I got into a reading slump in the first place. But, it was CMQ, and I trust them entirely with my bookish well-being.
And guess what? I was right.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler is electric, it’s an amazingly written book about a variety of topics, one of which (the weaponization of religion against young people in the name of righteousness, and the subsequent religious trauma it brings) could be extremely difficult to approach, the characters click together in that way only Casey could write, and the letters, the way the clues came together to form this string of clues leading to this brilliant, brilliant girl who really just wants to be found and seen for who she truly is… it broke my heart and put it back together.
I also adored the discussion of gender in this book, the way Smith approached Ash with respectful curiosity, how little by little Smith settled into his own skin, how Rory finally got the boy of his dreams without someone to project jealousy on in the middle.
And Shara and Chloe… good god, where do I even start with them? This was an amazingly written rivalry, it felt like Chloe and Shara did hate each other for a sizable portion of the book, the academic rivals to enemies to lovers was EXQUISITE, and reading the stages of Shara realizing who she is, grappling with that, then finally settling into her own skin was marvelous. Also, Chloe Green? freaking icon, attitude and two moms and all.
I wish I had this book growing up, it would’ve made things so much easier, would’ve made me realize that sometimes it’s not me who’s wrong, it’s the system that can’t make enough room for me without crumbling onto itself.
So yeah, Casey McQuiston is magic, there really is no other way to put it.
For a very long time, maybe five or six years, I stopped reading almost completely, I’d average three books on a good year. Zero on a bad one, and it completely broke my heart, because I grew up on books, my mom read them to me, and as soon as the weird shapes on paper made sense to me, I could not let go of books. They were my whole life, my constant friends, and the place I escaped to when things got hard. And I truly thought that lost.
Until I discovered Casey McQuiston, specifically One Last Stop, and it reminded me exactly why I loved reading in the first place. It was the first book in years that made me feel that flutter only books could give me, the way they wrote their characters, constructed their worlds, built their stories—it was all right, and I fell right back in love with books.
I was frankly terrified when CMQ announced that their next project would be YA, because forcing myself to read that genre had been one of the reasons I got into a reading slump in the first place. But, it was CMQ, and I trust them entirely with my bookish well-being.
And guess what? I was right.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler is electric, it’s an amazingly written book about a variety of topics, one of which (the weaponization of religion against young people in the name of righteousness, and the subsequent religious trauma it brings) could be extremely difficult to approach, the characters click together in that way only Casey could write, and the letters, the way the clues came together to form this string of clues leading to this brilliant, brilliant girl who really just wants to be found and seen for who she truly is… it broke my heart and put it back together.
I also adored the discussion of gender in this book, the way Smith approached Ash with respectful curiosity, how little by little Smith settled into his own skin, how Rory finally got the boy of his dreams without someone to project jealousy on in the middle.
And Shara and Chloe… good god, where do I even start with them? This was an amazingly written rivalry, it felt like Chloe and Shara did hate each other for a sizable portion of the book, the academic rivals to enemies to lovers was EXQUISITE, and reading the stages of Shara realizing who she is, grappling with that, then finally settling into her own skin was marvelous. Also, Chloe Green? freaking icon, attitude and two moms and all.
I wish I had this book growing up, it would’ve made things so much easier, would’ve made me realize that sometimes it’s not me who’s wrong, it’s the system that can’t make enough room for me without crumbling onto itself.
So yeah, Casey McQuiston is magic, there really is no other way to put it.