A review by lenorayoder
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

3.0

A book with a lot of promise that fell a little flat for me. I liked the setup of the book, and also really enjoyed the ending. The middle's a little muddy. Even the author seems to lose interest in the main plot of the scavenger hunt, and the only interesting B-plot (Georgia's) is, by nature, barely doing anything in the middle of the book. 

I think the big problem with this book is its side characters and plots, although Chloe's character isn't fabulously written either. Other than Georgia, they all feel very token. Everything we know about them is surface-level and/or vague, and everyone who isn't a straight up villain has some sort of queer identity by the end of the book. That wouldn't be a problem, except that even Chloe's other close friends feel like token characters. We know as much about Ash as we do the student body president, even though one is Chloe's close friend and the other is just a classmate she's friendly with. Ash's only significant dialogue is when they're talking about their queer identity, and that feels more like a pattern in this book than an isolated incident. That's a problem. 

My other big problem is Shara herself. Chloe and Shara have the bones of a really interesting dynamic

and relationship

, but the book only alludes to or tells us about the most interesting parts of it, instead of letting us see for ourselves.

They barely interact.

We get all this build up of

Shara as a villain

, and then it turns out she's never even

done anything mean

. The closest she gets is

turning on her dad

, and that's more

heroic than villainous

. Like the Chloe herself says,

the potential villain side of Shara is more interesting than her being nice and innocent

. Unfortunately, McQuiston teases and then refuses to deliver on exploring

a relationship between two people who are kind of mean but work romantically anyway

, and I think that's a shame.