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ninavhe 's review for:
I Kissed Shara Wheeler
by Casey McQuiston
I don't really know how to feel about this. I honestly gotta say it was just okay, which is kind of disappointing because I really loved Casey McQuinston's One Last Stop. After reading this, I feel like the author is better suited for adult novels and not really young adult.
The book is about 75% frustration and the author trying to convince you that both Shara and Chloe are manipulative and only care about themselves, and then the last 25% of the book basically talking everything good that just happened, while it really wasn't okay tbh.
For example: Georgia.
I am aware that the entire point of the book is that Chloe forgets about basically anything to find Shara, while she supposedly "hates her". But it was honestly so foul about how she basically dropped every single important relationships to find someone she is so adamant about to dislike. It was insanely clear that Georgia, the said most important person in her life, was struggling very hard and has been trying to talk to Chloe about everything since forever. But yet every time, Chloe blows her off. Georgia then yells at her out of frustration and Chloe has the gall to act all innocent and that she never meant for any of that to happen, Chloe was really all up in her own world, the main character of the story and didn't care about hurting anyone along the road. It is kind of hard to get behind a mc that is so incredibly selfish and doesn't notice it and to then root for her.
This friendship was very clearly super one-sided, and it should've just ended. But in the end, when Shara is found and Chloe's attention is not all Shara-Shara-Shara, Georgia just forgives her.
Chloe also had some other friends, but those characters fell very flat because they had almost no personality actually talked about in the book. The only thing that was clear, is that Chloe was really mean and didn't care about being rude and high-and-mighty because she was a New Yorkian and the rest were all small-town-boys. Her friends were so kind to her all the time, and she just never seen to reciprocate it.
What I also didn't enjoy was the constant flood of pop-culture references. I get that stuff like airpods or macbooks and all that get mentioned in a ya novel set in the present (even though it's still not necessary imo), but I absolutely loathe references to other book/film characters in a way where our character compares themselves to the other: "I"m so like Arya Stark omg". Please just write an actual personality for your characters instead of taking a shortcut and letting another author do it for you.
and truly, idk if it was meant to look like Chloe and Shara actually disliked each other, but it was clear to me from the start that they had feelings for each other in a strange way and were too stubborn to admit it. although I did like them a bit more together in the ending, I felt like they had the chemistry as dry as a used up sponge. at one point I actually felt that Rory and Chloe had more chemistry than her and Shara, and that is hard.
I will probably still read other books Casey comes out with, but I think i'll refrain from their YA books and read the adult ones instead haha
The book is about 75% frustration and the author trying to convince you that both Shara and Chloe are manipulative and only care about themselves, and then the last 25% of the book basically talking everything good that just happened, while it really wasn't okay tbh.
For example: Georgia.
I am aware that the entire point of the book is that Chloe forgets about basically anything to find Shara, while she supposedly "hates her". But it was honestly so foul about how she basically dropped every single important relationships to find someone she is so adamant about to dislike. It was insanely clear that Georgia, the said most important person in her life, was struggling very hard and has been trying to talk to Chloe about everything since forever. But yet every time, Chloe blows her off. Georgia then yells at her out of frustration and Chloe has the gall to act all innocent and that she never meant for any of that to happen, Chloe was really all up in her own world, the main character of the story and didn't care about hurting anyone along the road. It is kind of hard to get behind a mc that is so incredibly selfish and doesn't notice it and to then root for her.
This friendship was very clearly super one-sided, and it should've just ended. But in the end, when Shara is found and Chloe's attention is not all Shara-Shara-Shara, Georgia just forgives her.
Chloe also had some other friends, but those characters fell very flat because they had almost no personality actually talked about in the book. The only thing that was clear, is that Chloe was really mean and didn't care about being rude and high-and-mighty because she was a New Yorkian and the rest were all small-town-boys. Her friends were so kind to her all the time, and she just never seen to reciprocate it.
What I also didn't enjoy was the constant flood of pop-culture references. I get that stuff like airpods or macbooks and all that get mentioned in a ya novel set in the present (even though it's still not necessary imo), but I absolutely loathe references to other book/film characters in a way where our character compares themselves to the other: "I"m so like Arya Stark omg". Please just write an actual personality for your characters instead of taking a shortcut and letting another author do it for you.
and truly, idk if it was meant to look like Chloe and Shara actually disliked each other, but it was clear to me from the start that they had feelings for each other in a strange way and were too stubborn to admit it. although I did like them a bit more together in the ending, I felt like they had the chemistry as dry as a used up sponge. at one point I actually felt that Rory and Chloe had more chemistry than her and Shara, and that is hard.
I will probably still read other books Casey comes out with, but I think i'll refrain from their YA books and read the adult ones instead haha