This…was a big yikes for me. I want to start with the fact that this book is pitched as enemies to lovers being in competition for an art scholarship, which there is that. But not why they’re enemies, the girls are introduced as hating one another over a third girl and have already had several bad interactions with each other to establish what the reader comes into, had I known this I would have not picked up this book, but it gets worse.

The relationships between all three girls are very toxic. The voices between the main girls are…not recognizable. They read the exact same, mirrors of the same bland toxic character.

I found the mental health representation to be lack luster as well since Rhodes is seeing a therapist recognizing she needs help, but also realizing this therapist isn’t working for her needs, but then just keeps going?

There’s a lot of girl hate in this book and really…juvenile way certain things are handled. I couldn’t find if this was an own voices read or not, but it really didn’t feel like it. (This is just my personal opinion and experience as relation to my own identity) I couldn’t relate to this at all and never do I want to go into a romance immediately not wanting the characters to end up together.

Overall a real bummer since I was looking forward to this.

This story is about two rival artists who unknowingly are working on a webcomic together. It's the teenage version of the film I've Got Mail. Rhodes has natural talent but she's failing her classes and lately she hasn't been able to create anything in awhile. Intense and driven, Iliana works hard to prove herself. Whenever they're around each other, they can't help but argue and lash out. But as their online personas, I-Kissed-Alice and Curious-in-Cheshire, they share their appreciation for Alice in Wonderland and allow themselves to be vulnerable. The beginning wasn't easy to get into and it took me awhile to get used to the dialogue of the characters. From their verbal sparrings, I wasn't convinced that their interactions online really convinced me that they were compatible. Also in my opinion, Iliana is more fullly developed as a character than Rhodes is. However, I will say that I became more invested in the story when one of the girls realizes the person she despised is also someone she trusted completely. Maybe if this happened sooner, I would have enjoyed the book more. I enjoyed the moments when they do soften around each other. I would rate this 3.5/5.

A really great look at privilege, teen relationship dynamics (romantic and platonic), emotions--notably anger, depression, anxiety, and how the we perceive someone might deviate from who they truly are. Also a great discussion for how fanfiction plays such a crucial role in queer culture and identity for a lot of individuals, especially during their teen years. I appreciated this was a different take on rivals-to-lovers and slow burn romance that also took the time to explore several important topics.

Iliana and Rhodes. Rivals and sworn enemies. Cheshire and Alice, a romance sparked through message groups, graphic novels and a love of Alice in Wonderland.

I loved the imagery and symbolism woven through this YA romance. Full of Alice references, tarot cards, artwork and scholarship pursuits, It’s a mesh of late high school existence - romantic drama, interpersonal animosities, evolving and devolving friendships, and family relationships. An examination of class differences in opportunities and pursuing higher education is especially authentic and relevant.

The book switches between points of viewing, adding a richness to the characters and their motivations. I found it a bit difficult to stay on track with the story line about halfway through the book - it was hard to remember who was friends with whom at times.

Overall I enjoyed this book and think it will be especially engaging for fans of Alice in Wonderland and anyone who enjoys a story of budding romance.

Alice is beguiled by the cheshire cat. Three friends fight for their place within design school and each other's lives while dealing with meddling parents, jealousy and love. This is a feel good story with many twists and turns. No edgy content so it's safe for teens to read. You'll be able to relate to all of the characters.

I enjoyed the many different forms of relationships portrayed throughout the book and the act of not assuming that you know everything that's going on with someone else's life. The incorporation of the comic pages was a nice touch, as well as the love for Alice.

I'm giving this a lot of stars because I'm really into seeing fleshed out wlw stories with girls who run the full range of emotions and characteristics (i.e. ones that aren't solely sweet and bland). For me, though, it was hard to watch as the three girls inflicted so much hurt on each other. It felt quite cruel for quite a huge chunk of the book. It really wasn't a fun read for me, overall, though I would love more complex wlw stories in ya!

Birch combines the magic of Alice in Wonderland with the magic of girl love to provide readers with a book that cannot be put down. At times the characters can feel overly human, but ultimately redeem themselves in this feel-good romance.

Three girls, two enemies. I Kissed Alice is as subversive as it is moving. Readers will be engrossed by the angst, drama, and love in disguise.

Cecelia Beckman, Sheaf & Ink

My Thoughts
Anna Birch’s I Kissed Alice masterfully paints a vivid picture of how two girls deal with their identity, who they are as artists, and their place in the world.

Readers will see through these characters eyes and be shocked by the myriad of feels this book exposes. We experience the intense, competitive, almost violent force of nature that is Illiana Vrionide. While the parental pressures, apprehensive sexual identity, and the debilitated creativity of the once genius artist Rhodes Ingram. And avid readers of YA will be engrossed in the ever changing volatile relationship between these two. But anxiously waiting for their anonymous selves to connect the dots.

It’s a raw and emotional coming of age tale. Where Illiana and Rhodes are painted in such vividly dramatic and infamous detail. Readers will be drawn to all of the emotional truths. Two of which, coming to terms with who Illiana and Rhodes should be. The other, the consequences, good or bad, in their choices to ultimately be themselves.

The writing, the plot, and the unexpected plot twists drew me in and never let go. The darker shades Birch highlights in her story were compelling. Rhodes’ depression and insecurities. Illiana’s inability to see everyone’s side until it’s almost too late. These attributes make those moments of clarity gratifying as they are special.

I absolutely loved the the fan fiction aspect of the novel. Rhodes and Illiana’s co-authorship of their online graphic novel was a great subplot. I hope that thread of the story is something Birch writes in the future. I would definitely read a queer sci-fi Alice in Wonderland graphic novel retelling.

Happy Reading ̴ Cece

I felt like this book suffered from a poor execution of its basic enemies to lovers trope-premise. The initial set up is that Rhodes and Iliana hate each other for some unclear reason or another. Both are friends with Sarah and seem jealous of the other but neither is romantically interested in Sarah, so it's just a jealousy over which is perceived to be the better "best friend". Frankly, the Sarah character flitters throughout this book but is never developed enough to feel particular germane to the story. Added to the jealousy motivating factor for the hatred, there is also a somewhat confusing event that had occurred the previous school year where the girls were caught attending an art installation while high--and apparently...arrested? After a rocky set of initial chapters told through alternating first person perspectives of Iliana and Rhodes to set up the mutual hatred, we're introduced to "Cheshire" and "Alice" through a DM conversation on a fan fiction website where they've been submitting their webcomic based on Alice in Wonderland. Naturally for this trope to work, neither Iliana nor Rhodes has any idea that their online counterpart is the other girl. But this is where much of the story ended up breaking down for me. It wasn't clear that the online personas were romantically interested in each other until a random conversation about "sexts" but other than that, the DM conversations are dull. "Cheshire" and "Alice"'s actual relationship sounded to have developed the previous summer or school year, before the events of this book. There was just such a disconnect for me with where these characters were at in their own headspaces and where the author drops the reader in the story. This almost felt like the second or third book of a series, so much history happens and is eluded to but the reader isn't part of any of it. So instead we have massive amounts of telling instead of showing. We don't see a relationship evolving between Cheshire and Alice, it's not completely clear or reasonable why Rhodes and Iliana hate each other, Sarah is set up to be an important character but never quite develops into one, and while the Wonderland comic seems like it would be important to the story, there are maybe just 4 or 5 small panels included in the book and none really parallel the characters and events they correspond with.
Ultimately, this felt like an unfocused story. The reader was denied the more interesting bits--this webcomic and the importance of the relationship between Cheshire and Alice. What remains are too many small pieces of what could have been a strong whole.

I loved this story so much. A f/f, YA romance filled with fandom? How could I not adore this?! It was truly delightful and I highly recommend it.

This was pretty cute! I really liked the fandom aspect, and the "hating each other in real life but unknowingly being friends online" trope is amazing. The characters themselves didn't really stand out, and I didn't totally get why Iliana was friends with Sarah. Overall, it was a cute, sapphic read and I'm glad I took the time to read it!

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

You say, “YA F/F enemies to lovers”, I say, “thank you, I’ll take a hundred.” I was SO excited about this book, and despite a nagging bit of reader’s block earlier this month that slowed me down, I absolutely tore through it. It lived up PERFECTLY to my high expectations—I’d go so far as to say this is one of the better YA F/F books I’ve ever read. (And I read a lot of YA F/F, so I’m not just throwing words around here.)

Part of what’s magical about this book is how completely genuine the characters are. All of them, including the side characters, are complex, and have as many bad qualities as they do good. They’re selfish, they’re petty, they take advantage of the people around them—but you still root for them, because these qualities don’t make them unlikable so much as real. I found myself thinking, at multiple times, “That sounds a lot like people I actually know.” It’s refreshing to see a YA romance that lets its characters be “bad”—not “oh, they’re so tortured and tragic, it’s so sexy” bad, but genuinely kind of toxic—and then learn from their mistakes, own up to them, and grow and become better as people.

The relationship between the two main characters was, as promised, so angsty and delicious. Iliana and Rhodes are students at a prestigious art school who are competing for the same scholarship prize. Both are ridiculously competitive and see each other as their main obstacle to the prize, but more than that: there’s bad blood between the two due to a genuine misunderstanding, and while a mutual friend forces them into each other’s orbits, they can’t stand each other. I loved how the author built the contrast between these two: wealthy, privileged Rhodes feels burned out as an artist and suffocated by her parents’ money and expectations, envious of how easily creativity seems to come to Iliana. Iliana, meanwhile, resents Rhodes’s privilege, coming from a family that financially is barely scraping by; she interprets Rhodes’s demeanor as smug and superior. And unbeknownst to both of them, they’ve spent the better part of a year collaborating on a comic together on a fanfiction platform—under anonymous usernames, which have allowed them to grow close to one another without realizing who they are.

I loved the dichotomy of the person online that you’re falling in love with versus that same person in real life that you hate. The fanfiction was a cool way for them to see a different side to each other without realizing they were doing so, and if I had one complaint about the book, it was that we didn’t see as much of their online personas, Alice and Cheshire, interacting as I would have liked. We know that they’ve been friends online for a while, and both have feelings for each other, but we didn’t see much of those feelings in the text—the bulk of their interactions as Alice and Cheshire involve things like arguing over whether or not they should meet in real life. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book, however, or make the relationship between the two any less believable.

The progression from enemies to lovers was so authentically and sensitively written that it had me absolutely ripping through the last half of the book, and absolutely giddy by its conclusion. What an absolute delight to read—and I meant it when I said I'd take a hundred! WHERE ARE THE REST OF MY F/F ENEMIES TO LOVERS?

I really enjoyed this debut novel. I think the tone and emotions in the novel are perfect for teens. The art school setting, paired with the graphic novel illustrations, can appeal to readers who are artsy themselves, or those admirers of the arts :) Will definitely be suggesting to my high school media center coordinator to put this on her order list for the fall.

I Kissed Alice
Anna Birch’s debut novel is listed as a mashup of “You’ve Got Mail” and “Simon vs. the Homeosapiens” which was very interesting. Right off the bat, Iliana remarks that she hates Rhodes. Their feelings are undoubtedly made know from the first page. The two girls are forced together due to their mutual friend Sarah’s birthday. The relationship between the three is strained, when the two become competitive and cruel with each other. This is very real to what girl friendships can be like. The toxic relationship between Iliana and Rhodes is never seen by Sarah, who remains oblivious of it. There, the reader learns the truth: that the two girls are collaborating on a fanfiction drawing website. This came as a shock to me, that the big surprise was given up so early. Yes, in the summary it was revealed, but to have a big detail like that blown in the first chapter was weird. This works in our favor, as the two competitive girls both vie for a scholarship for their art. The hatred can be seen prominently in both Iliana and Rhodes thoughts; however, the feelings whirl when Rhodes under the name I-Kissed-Alice and Iliana under the name Curious-in-Cheshire communities under unknown identities. Even when they hate each other, both Iliana and Rhodes have thoughts that let the reader know their unconscious attraction. I quite like how the two characters are complete contrasts of what they are in person. This is realistic and relatable in when people are anonymous, they say and do things against or new for their character, whether or not that thing is good or bad. The two girls share their stories and fall in love, all while anonymous which is revealed in the second half. The second half is much more emotional, both girls took a step back and reevaluated their lives and what they wanted for their futures. As someone who lives and breathes on fanfiction, I really appreciate a mainstream book acknowledging the existence of the writers and stories that always get a bad rep. Thank you Anna.

I fully expected to enjoy I Kissed Alice, but this was one of the most confusing reading experiences I've ever had. I was left disoriented for most of the book-- not because the events of the plot were confusing, but because the reader is thrown into the story with very little preamble or setup, and I never felt like I got a good sense of the characters and their motivations and why I should care about them. Because I never had this connection to the people I was reading about, I couldn't make myself care about the plot. The quality of the writing was excellent, but I really needed more character development to be fully sold on the romance.

This book had a lot of potential and I will read just about anything F/F, however, there were some pretty big mechanical issues that I couldn't get over. The book spent a lot of time on the backstory of the girls, their friendships, and their personal life. I could never tell what time period we were looking at if the girls were friends, or what was going on. I could see the fact that they hated each other and were secretly in love with each other from the second we were introduced to the online chat. I wish there had been a little build-up to that instead of the big secret blown on the first few pages. I would've liked to second guess whether it was Imogen or not and actually see them collide with each other online and in real life instead of knowing from the start. Both characters were insufferable to me and I didn't feel sorry for either of them. I also didn't understand why the best friend pushed them into social situations when she knew how they felt about each other.

It was a fantastic plot but not so great execution.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Imprint through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*

So much about the frame of this that I loved. Class SES differences, mental health stuffs, sapphic vibes, art students, competition, hate to love trope, virtual texting convos ! ...

And yet. It still didn’t land for me. Too long, no characters I could totally connect with and the shift from hate to love was clunky.. Also a lot of mean girl vibes (which are important) with that ‘everyone has their stuff’ type set ups, but didn’t quite work for me either / maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.

This will work for some folks for sure though and the frame alone and all of the pieces I would typically like kept me reading to the end, so maybe it’s just not a right match/ disappointment on my end. It happens.

Thanks to Netgalley and publishers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I just finished reading this one, and I enjoyed the fact that it's set in the South, but does not seem to traffic in many of the stereotypes I've seen, and treats the region as somewhere that arts education not only exists, but is valued. Birch does an excellent job at making the characters unlikeable yet sympathetic, often at the same time, and pulls the reader back and forth between those two sides.

You know, before this book, I actually thought I had read enemies-to-lovers before. Now, after having read it, I realize that what I thought was enemies-to-lovers was merely two people who have the most vague irritation fueled by UST towards each other to lovers.

This book was exquisitely written, and if I were a different person on a different day, this would hands down be a five star read. But I do find that I prefer less enemies and more lovers, and that the angst factor was higher by several degrees than I like.

Having said that, I can't think of a single other YA (or even adult novel to be honest),where the girl characters were allowed to be as simultaneously ragged, raw-edged, vital, whole, hopeful, fully realized, sympathetic, and likeable. Other positives were casual and positive LGBTQIA and fat rep, positive portrayals of therapy and mental health awareness, and a laserlike focus on inter-feminine relationships, both romantic and platonic.

I'm going to be thinking about this one for a long time.