Delightfully funny, romantic, and fresh.

“The Anti-Virginity Pact” delivers a story that is so real to our modern day society. Our main character Meredith struggles with her views on religion, whilst also dealing with the repercussions of a pact that she and her best friend Jo drunkenly made. Also, her boyfriend Sam, who can I just say, was amazing. Meredith is a character that strangely enough I related to. In terms of questioning my beliefs on religion, I definitely agreed with some of the points that she considered. This novel was also extremely quick to read, having only taken me three days to fly through. This was definitely a story that I devoured and fell in love with, and Katie Wismers writing was funny and brilliant.

I thought that Wismer dealt amazingly with the subject of sexual assault, and overall sex in general. I also thought that her portrayal of high school was realistic. While there were many plot lines which sometimes got confusing, I found that the main story was easy to follow and I was instantly invested!

Having followed Katie’s writing process on her youtube channel, I found myself eagerly anticipating this novel, and it’s fair to say, I wasn’t disappointed! I hope that this book finds success upon its release, and that Katie continues to produce excellent work in the future!

I wasn't sure how I would feel about this book going into it. I don't typically care for contemporary, especially YA contemporary. I read this mostly because I'm a fan of the authors book tube and wanted to support her fully prepared to give this a 3 star rating for being "fine" like 90% of the contemporary I read.

First of I want to say I'm so pleasantly shocked that Kate doesn't allow her high school characters to do endless stupid shit with a "they're just kids" excuse. The teens act like believable teenagers facing emotional consequences in a real way. There are some sub plots that are a little out there but nothing that took away from my enjoyment.

This book tackles hard hitting topics like attempted sexual assault, bullying, and religious fundamentalists, but in a way that reflects well on teenage/parent relationships.

The pacing of the writing was wonderful, I wasn't bored and the climax of the plot points weren't rushed. I also appreciated that being in a relationship wasn't the "answer" as seen in a lot YA novels.

Overall I highly recommend this. It was a great read.

I really wanted to like this book, but I didn't. The premise sounded interesting, a little outside of what I would usually read but i like to be surprised and usually will read any contemporary book. This book, however, missed the mark for me. The first half of this book was quite slow, and not much happened, which isn't a bad thing necessarily but it is when you compare it to how much happened in the second half. It almost feels as if the author was worried she was running out of time to fit the entire story in, but this book is only 240 pages and i think had it been longer, some of these issues could have been resolved.
Furthermore, I felt as if the actions and choices made by the characters were very young for their age, this story would have been better if Meredith and her friends were 16 and harper was maybe 13/14, although her being 15 is not unbelievable.
I thought the religion aspect of this story was interesting, and had the story focused more on Meredith and the pact she signed and how that contrasts the beliefs she was raised on, this could have been incredibly interesting. However, the inclusion of the dog fighting ring, her almost sleeping with Ashley's boyfriend even though she has a boyfriend, her getting assaulted by Derek; it felt as if the author was trying to do too much in a short book.
Finally, for a book called the anti-virginity pact, the actual pact felt very much like a sideplot, almost as if it was forgotten about until about halfway through, when suddenly everything started happening in Meredith's life.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

DNF at 30%. This book is trying to talk about too many topics. It feels unfocused and like all of the topics aren't going to be wrapped up. From reading reviews, a lot of readers feel that way.

I wasn't a fan of Mare as a character. I definitely didn't like Johanna and I don't like how her student-teacher relationship dreams are being introduced. It's frustrating that Mare isn't willing to be mad at her friend for wanting to have sex with a teacher. It also doesn't seem like the teacher was doing themselves any favors. The male teachers I know keep their doors open when female students are in their rooms.

The writing is good and I'd be willing to try Katie's future books. I just want them to be more focused.

The Anti-Virginity Pact is written by Katie Wismer. It is releasing June 16, 2020. Thank you to Katie Wismer and Net Galley for allowing me to read this book early. ⁣
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I’ve been watching Katie on youtube for a long time and couldn’t wait to support her first published novel. This book comes with a ton of trigger warnings, but Katie does a great job of pointing them out to you. We are following Meredith as she is going through her senior year of high school. She’s an atheist and a preacher’s daughter. At the beginning of the book she makes a pact with her best friend to lose her virginity. Eventually the pact becomes known at school and flips her world upside down.⁣

This book sounds controversial and I will admit that I was a little nervous going into it. I was so wrong. It starts off like a typical YA novel, but it gets very gritty and very real. Katie isn’t afraid to deal with heavy topics and leaves you with a great message that a lot of people need to have especially with what is going on right now. It’s a great book for learning to stand up for yourself and what you believe in! Loving others, but also loving yourself. I saw myself in Meredith and I found myself crying multiple times in this book. Younger me needed to read this book. I think a lot of readers will be able to relate to this book in one way, shape, or form. Highly recommend you try this book if you like hard hitting contemporary books!⁣
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4 stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣

Really really enjoyed this! Thought Meredith came across as a normal teenager, going through some not so normal situations. I did feel some events were slightly far fetched but again books set in high school often have that so it didn't ruin the book for.

Thank you to Netgalley and Katie Wismer for a copy of this book!

Part of this book was very hard to read, but I knew this getting into it because the author included a list of trigger warnings. That was so appreciated, and every author should do this!!

The writting was wonderful. The plot had a great flow to it. The story really pulled at my emotions. The characters were fun and well rounded. I love the friendship between Meredith and Johanna! Every girl needs that kind of bestie by their side.

Overall fantastic read! Would totally recommend

Wow! I loved this and honestly if I was able to read this while I was in high school it would 100% be a 5 star because it's everything high school me loved in books! To this day I still love a good book that has a religious aspect from a nonreligious person's view because my family and my in laws are high religious and that's just never been my journey so even as an adult I was able to relate to Mare! I had minor issues with this book but nothing that kept me from loving it still! I would recommend this to anyone who loves hard hitting reads.

The Anti-Virginity Pact is Katie Wismer’s debut novel (she published her first poetry collection in Summer 2018) and it’ll be released on June 16, 2020 by her own publishing company, Ahimsa Press. This book was one of my most anticipated releases of 2020 because, besides being and author, Katie, who’s only 23 years-old, is also one of my favorite YouTubers (KatesBookDate): she creates content about what she reads and writes and about her work as a freelance editor.
For that reason, and because she’s got a B.A. in Creative Writing, I always expected her first novel to be wonderful. When she announced this book and its plot, I was sure I’d love it. But I was disappointed. The three stars I’m giving it mean I had fun reading it and Katie’s a good writer, but the book has plenty of negative aspects.
One of my main issues with this book is that its title, summary and first few chapters promise you something that’s very different from what the book actually turns out to be.
According to The Anti-Virginity Pact’s Goodreads summary, Meredith Beaumont, the goody two-shoes daughter of a preacher, is sick of pretending to be something she’s not. Even though religion is crucial to the Beaumont family, she’s an atheist and now, on her last year of high school, she signs a pact with her best friend to lose her virginity before school’s out. That won’t be easy for a girl who panics whenever she thinks about boys, though.
When she finally gets a chance to act on the pact, it’s leaked against her will. How will that affect her relationship with the boy she’s starting to really like? What will happen when her religious parents find out? Most importantly, will Meredith be able to show everyone who she really is?
The tone and content of this book were not what I was expecting. The title led me to believe the story would de sexy. But no, there’s no sex at all – there isn’t even any sexual tension – in this book that includes the world ‘virginity’ in its title. (There’s an almost-rape, but we’ll get there.) What’s the point of giving the book this title and having a protagonist who despite being in high school is already 18 if nothing remotely sexy happens? It would make more sense for her to be 14 or 15.
The title and summary also make you think that the anti-virginity pact will play a major role in this book. And yes, there is a pact, and it does affect Meredith’s life, but the book is no more about the pact than it is about a whole bunch of random things that happen to her in a time frame too short for it to be plausible.
Very little happens in the first half of the book, and very slowly, but the author created a nice foundation for a few themes that she could’ve really gotten into over the course of the rest of the story. For example, Meredith feels invisible because as a young girl she was labeled a quiet kid and that reputation has stuck with her and resulted in crippling anxiety. It’s complicated to break away from what people think of you when teenagers are so quick to judge each other. It would have been incredible to see Meredith fight against all that when the pact is leaked and she becomes the center of everyone’s attention at school.
But the latter half ignores what is previously established, only to cut quickly from theme to theme without going deeply into any. Everything suddenly happens to Meredith: she plays a part in rescuing an abused dog, she’s nearly raped, she’s kidnapped, she’s almost sent to a correctional camp for troubled teens, her car falls off a cliff, etc. It’s like the author thought ‘How chaotic can one’s life get in the span of a week?” and just kept throwing random problems at Meredith.
It’s like the two halves of The Anti-Virginity Pact belong to two different books. Actually, the second half is like a collage of pieces from a bunch of different books. There are no significant debates on any of the themes (which are controversial and important ones) and the messages are told in a rhetoric style that is not believable as the inner monologue of a teenager whose life is falling apart.
The author tried to include an unending number of themes in the same novel, as if that would somehow make the book more complex and important, but it’s saturated and it ended up not having a story and characters that the reader can connect to. Each one of these themes could be taken out of the book without that affecting the rest of the story. There are no cause-and-effect relationships at play here and it all comes off as shallow and not at all intense.
Besides those main “themes”, there are other smaller ones that are even less tapped into, such as homosexuality and homophobia (is an LGBT+ minor safe living with homophobic family members? Can we assume devout Christians are homophobic?). It’s a shame that the reader can’t access the thoughts and feelings of the LGBT+ character. You’re only told what the straight protagonist assumes her sister is feeling, which is internalized homophobia and shame. Meredith doesn’t even try to educate herself on the subject and you don’t know how this theme turns out. Why include it, then?
There’s also no resolution to the arcs of characters who are supposedly important. Meredith’s best friend Johanna wants to sleep with their World History teacher, but that subplot is suddenly dropped. And Sam, the romantic interest, is writing a book and wants to study journalism in college, in spite of his dad’s disapproval. Does he get into college? Does he ever finish that book? Who knows! Meredith started avoiding this guy as soon as the pact was leaked and you don’t find out much more about him from that point on. He doesn’t even go to your school, girl! He doesn’t know about the damn pact. You didn’t have to ghost him. Couldn’t Meredith have learned how to communicate with Sam instead of getting into a bunch of ridiculous situations?
A few smaller things that bugged me: at the start of the book, the protagonist uses a lot of French expressions and words (because her mom’s French), but that completely goes away after a while and it’s never brought back; Meredith’s anxiety is so bad that she keeps medication in her locker to take every day before first period, but that’s also never mentioned again and she stops acting like she suffers from anxiety; Meredith’s dad tries to take away Sex Ed from his daughters’ school – what happens with that? Was he able to, did he give up…? I have no idea.
In the end, the morality of the story is presented in a very obvious manner and it’s something like: ‘Screw FOMO, not all of us need sex, parties and popularity to live our teen years to the fullest.’ But did this girl really have to go and hurt poor Sam to come to that conclusion, and did this book have to have so many loose ends? Couldn’t the story have focused on the damn pact and on Meredith’s relationships with the people who matter?
In spite of all that, I could tell that Katie is a gifted writer and she has a lot of potential – she had a great idea, and the book is very entertaining and well-written. The issue was that she sacrificed character development in favor of including the largest number of themes she could. I can’t wait to read her next book, which will certainly be better than this one.

The author gifted me a digital galley of The Anti-Virginity Pact in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced readers copy from netgalley/Katie Wismer in exchange for an honest review.
I was skeptical going into this book because I have had issues reading books written by booktubers in the past. I gave this one a chance because I have been following her channel for a long time and have been enjoying watching her writing process.
I have to say even though there were questionable choices that the main character made I really enjoyed reading this book.
I really enjoyed Kate’s writing style, it was so easy to read. Her characters were well developed I never had a problem remembering who was who, which happens sometimes believe me some characters just blend together, thankfully that never happened in this book.
I never felt bored while reading, it never felt like the book was just dragging, so that’s a plus. To be completely honest I went into this with some hesitations and came out of it thoroughly pleased. I would definitely read something else written by Kate Wismer in the future.

'The Anti-Virginity Pact' has a good storyline but it has failed to leave a mark. I didn't like the characters much and the writing is also clumsy at many places. Disturbing social issues like animal abuse, assault have been used in this novel but I still feel it was not very entertaining. I think the author has done a good job in terms of explaining the religious difficulties faced by Mare. I also enjoyed Jo and Mare's friendship. I didn't like the ending much. The book deals with sensitive topics through a story but somehow I was not impressed. I expected more after reading the blurb so I hope the author's next book is good.

I'm speechless. Being someone who does not gravitate towards YA contemporary, my main goal for pursuing an advanced copy of this book was to support the author, but I was immediately blown away by how emotional I found this story to be. The book hooks you right in the beginning. As you go through the story you are enthralled by a lot of what is going on, but you very much stay for the story, not anything deeper. Despite the average rating of this book I read the synopsis and instantly knew I wanted to read it. Katie manages to spin a well-written and important story about a teenage girl that struggles not only to live her identity as an atheist in a Christian family but is also a social outcast in her high school. She’s known as Mute Mare because she’s learned early on in Bible studies that expressing her own viewpoints can get her into trouble quite quickly. That being said, I like how The Anti-Virginity Pact deals with Jo and Mare’s attempt to finally making 'the best' of their high school experience. Just because one thing in your life is absolutely terrible it doesn’t mean you can fix that with diving headfirst into Mission Lose Your Virginity. It proves that your life’s going to be a struggle in many ways. This story has so many ups and downs and I felt every single one of them in my heart. All in all, a wonderful story that kept me guessing and screaming and crying. I look forward to purchasing this book when it comes out in print, and I do not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a quick and thrilling read that is as important as it is fun.

Two friends want to lose their virginity before college so they can have it over and done with. Only, Meredith is the daughter of a preacher, and if this pact gets out, it could ruin her. Meredith already has a tough time with things. She doesn’t believe in what her father preaches, and because of her family, she faces a lot of bullying in school. If it wasn’t for her best friend Johanna, she wouldn’t have any friends at all. This makes the story multi-layered with several real-world issues that face teens today.

The next two paragraphs might contain spoilers.

The story started easily enough, but the thing that stands out to me is how many times these people are raising their eyebrows. (Five times in the first chapter alone). I knew then that this would not be the best story for me, but I stuck with it. Meredith is an immature character who doesn’t act 18 years old. She over polices her best friend. It surprised me Jo stayed friends with her because I couldn’t put up with that kind of constant badgering. But Jo wasn’t all that supportive either, so it was a fairly toxic friendship. We’re led to believe Meredith never talks and is close to mute when she is anything but. I’m baffled why Meredith wouldn’t report the extent of the bullying. Your car is getting destroyed, heck, you get kidnapped, and you say nothing?

When we pass the halfway mark of the book, the pace picks up speed and things happen at a breakneck pace. With the rape, the repercussions get glossed over. I understand the book was trying to portray the ultra-religious, but why is there a slur in place of the word gay or lesbian, multiple times? Mere’s parents attempted to send her to a conversion camp because she’s an atheist, but they would be okay with a gay daughter? It was just an offensive and poorly addressed way to tack on yet another issue. Same for the dogfighting. It was all just too many insufficiently addressed things. If the focus would have stayed on just a few issues, the book would have packed a bigger punch. There could be a good story underneath with some editing.

2.5 rounded up to a 3 ⭐️

The Anti-Virginity Pact caught my eye because the synopsis sounded super good.

Sadly the story was all over the place and we really only read about the pact for a small part of it.

There’s a lot of triggers and I feel like I need to bring those up first. Topics like sexual assault, bullying, animal abuse and religion.

My main issue with this book is how unbelievable it is. The main character kept getting herself into some ridiculous situations. Most of it was so unrealistic.

I felt like I was watching an episode of Pretty Little Liars. A train wreck that I couldn’t look away from.

I didn’t hate the book. It was enjoyable after the 50% mark and it was a pretty fast read.

Thank you Netgalley for the copy of this book.

Rating: 3.5
**Thank you to Nat Galley, Katie Wismer, and Xpressor Book Tours for this arc in exchange for an honest review. Release date: June 16,2020**

In my opinion, and based solely on enjoyment, The Anti-Virginity Pact was an okay book. It had some really good scenes that made me want to keep reading and others where I just wanted to close the book and move on.

Some things to look out for is sexual assault, animal abuse, bullying, and religion dilemmas.

I enjoyed the relationship between Harper and Mare. I also liked how Mare grew-up in a way that she views herself and others in a different way, although it took some dumb choices to get there.
What I didn't enjoy was some of the over dramatized scenes like, the bullying, which in my opinion was a bit excessive. Another thing is that Mare read like a 14-16 year old, not a high school senior, but I understand that everyone matures at their own space and based on their own experiences.

The one thing that bothered me the most is that I felt that when religion was mentioned, the religion as a whole was put down instead of pointing out the problems within the religion and acknowledging that not everyone in a certain religion acts and thinks the exact same but, I do understand that Mare may have felt that way.

Overall, The Anti-Virginity Pact was a quick and fun read once you get past some aspects of the book.

📱📖BOOK REVIEW

➡️This book brought up so many feelings about high school. It reminded me how mean girls can be. It reminded me how lonely high school can be. It reminded me how magical that first love can be. It also reminded me that learning how to be true to yourself is the hardest lesson you will ever learn.

CW - bullying, sexual assault, animal abuse, substance abuse, anxiety, trauma, religion

Content Warnings: bullying (on page), anxiety (we see a few anxiety attacks on page), sexual assault (we witness a near miss), animal abuse (you don’t see the abuse, but you see the aftermath briefly)
I want this to be a spoiler-free review so I won’t talk more in-depth about those trigger warnings here, but if you feel like you need more details to know whether you should read this book, please feel free to reach out, I’d be more than happy to discuss it further.

The Anti-Virginity Pact comes out June 16th (2020). I don’t preorder books for my own reasons, but I will absolutely be buying this book the second it’s available.

The story centers on a girl named Meredith, a preacher’s daughter and a relative nobody at her high school. She’s dealing with some inner conflict because she doesn’t believe in god and doesn’t really want to, which makes dealing with her family more difficult. As a joke with a friend, Mare signs a pact to lose her virginity by the end of senior year. This would be just fine, except that the local mean girl finds out and spreads the details all around the school. Now Mare is infamous and becomes the focus of a lot of bullying and sexual harassment. Also threatened by the Pact, is her budding romance and her family dynamic. And as if all that weren’t enough to deal with, Mare is really worried about one of the dogs at the animal shelter she works for.

Don’t worry, this book isn’t all doom and gloom, though. Mare’s struggles only serve to highlight what a kind-hearted, passionate, brave person our main character is. There are a lot of funny and adorable parts to this book that offset the hard parts nicely. And we all know that can be a hard balance to strike. The difference between “logical conflict” and “everything that can go wrong, does go wrong” is a finer line than one would think.

I connected to this story really well, which is rare for me within the YA Contemporary genre. Usually I find it too difficult to get into the POV character’s mind and even harder to care about their life, but this book drew me in immediately. I identified with Mare’s inner life and cared quite strongly about her highs and lows. I believe this is because it was so well written.

One of my favorite parts about this book is how realistic the relationships are. From the budding romance to the sibling relationship, it all just seems so real. I felt like I had experienced something identical or very similar to every relationship Mare had and I deeply appreciate that in a book.

I also really loved the writing style. Katie Wismer has a really excellent, and potentially distinctive, writing voice. (Which happens to be one of my favorite things in a writer.) I look forward to seeing future books from her so I can compare.

My favorite part was the end, but don’t take that the wrong way. I don’t mean like “oh I’m so glad it ended” I just mean that the way she wrapped things up felt so good. Like not everything was perfect or tied up with a little bow, but it was a satisfying ending. The kind of ending where you put down the book and just breathe a deep sigh because you feel so good, you know?

Overall, my thoughts on this book are very positive. I do a favorite and least favorite for every book I read, and I couldn’t even think of a least favorite for this book, that’s how much I liked it.

I definitely recommend this if you like YA Fiction, but even if you aren’t a YA reader, I think you could enjoy this book, it was that good.

I'd like to start off by saying thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Okay so, I really wanted to like this book but there were just so many things that caused me to not enjoy it. I felt that topics were crammed together and it left them underdeveloped. The dogfighting side plot seemed out of place in this book and I was confused as to why it was even in it in the first place. The main villain in this book comes back and all of sudden wants to help? By the end of the book, I was left with a few questions.

Unfortunately, this book was archived before I was able to download it. I was looking forward to reading this one, because of the unique storyline. I’m not a religious person but this book sounded intriguing and I was looking forward to learning more about the religion and getting to know the characters.

Unfortunately I did not love this book, the writing didn’t do it for me, I hated the characters and the plot seemed really slow going! Also did not like the fact someone was trying to pursue a teacher/student relationship