It’s official I will read anything Casey McQuiston writes! She hooked me with Red, White, and Royal Blue. She melted my heart with One Last Stop. And she did it again with I Kissed Shara Wheeler!! There is so much goodness in this book I don’t even know where to start. The pacing is perfection, the characters are complex, and the writing is engaging. My favorite part of this books was the friendships. The unlikely relationships formed while following Shara’s clues. McQuiston always does a wonderful job of presenting the perspective of LGBTQ young people and the struggles they face in their daily lives. In particular the homophobia of small town America on young queer student is so well written and heartfelt.
Everybody should read this!! I am recommending it to everybody I know especially young people. I loved every minute of it.


Thank you to #Netgalley for ARC In exchange for an honest opinion.

Thank you to NetGally for providing me with an ARC of I Kissed Shara Wheeler!

This book read very differently for their other books. There were some aspects of this books that I really enjoyed. Found family is one of my favorite tropes, and this is seen in here. I really enjoyed the discussion of being queer and navigating through a very conservative and religious community. I believe a lot of youth could relate to this, and will value reading about the characters' experience. Also, the mystery part of the story line was really fun and kept me hooked!

However, there were a few things that I did not love in here. I really struggled falling in love with the characters. In both of their previous work, I fell in LOVE with not just the main characters but the side characters as well. In this book, both of our main characters are not the nicest people. However, I love a good morally gray character, but I still could not connect with either one of them. Also, I found some parts of she story line to drag. This book did take me longer to finish than what it should.

Even though there are aspects I did not completely love, there were parts I did enjoy!

A great YA read. Shara Wheeler is the daughter of the school principal, one of two up for valedictorian, and beautiful. Part of the 'it' crowd. And she has disappeared! But not after impulsively kissing Chloe, her valedictorian rival, as well as an ex-boyfriend and her current love interest. Shara leaves clues, as to her whereabouts and sends the unlikely trio on a hunt to find her. Shara is not a nice person, right? What is motivating her? True teen voices, thoughts and some realistic realizations that who you seem to be is not who you are.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an ARC of this book.

I Kisses Shara Wheeler follows protagonist Chloe Green and her friends/acquaintances Rory and Smith as they search for popular, it girl Shara Wheeler who has run away. Before disappearing, though, Shara kissed Chloe, Rory, and Smith and left them cryptic notes that lead them on a hunt to find out where she’s hiding. At the beginning of the book, it is made clear that Shara is Smith’s girlfriend, Rory’s love interest, and Chloe’s nemesis but the end of the book tells a different story that I won’t spoil here.

I really wanted to love this book, but I didn’t.

Unlike characters in McQuiston’s other books, to me Chloe lacks development. Her entire personality is wanting to be valedictorian and (supposedly) hating Shara Wheeler. Additionally, while Chloe has a whole slew of friends, most of them don’t really contribute anything to the plot and are just there when it’s convenient to add in a bit of drama or spice. Obviously Chloe’s friends are not the main characters, but there are too many of them for all of them to be mostly irrelevant and underdeveloped.

The second half of the book is fine. It’s a really long happy ending type of thing. You see graduation, friend reconciliations, the enemies to lovers thing finally realized, etc. It’s nothing super special.

Overall, I would say this book was fine. I didn’t hate it but it wasn’t my favorite of McQuiston’s works.

Casey Mcquiston does it again. But from a different angle. It’s queer and it’s hearth breaking and it’s inspiring and it’s as real as any fiction novel can get. The characters and well developed and compelling and they move the plot along at a perfect pace.

While I really enjoyed this book, and this is entirely my fault, I didn’t realize it was YA. This made it seem a lot less mature to me at first which was perplexing and I was getting frustrating with the writing style due to that. However, once I realize it was YA I was able to enjoy it a lot more knowing the audience it was direct for. It was really great, witty, and such an enjoyable read, while I wouldn’t automatically recommend it to people who enjoyed her last few adult books, I will recommend it to anyone looking for a super fun YA romance!

I'll admit, I was nervous. Not because I don't trust Casey McQuiston to create a wonderful story with depth and amazing characters (they have proven by now that they are perfectly capable of doing this). But going from adult (even New Adult) to YA can be challenging for some authors. Some authors simply write younger characters and think that's all YA is when it's far deeper than that. YA is not a genre for every author to tackle.
That said, Casey McQuiston tackled it and did so beautifully. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is such a wonderful book in so many ways. The story itself is so fun, the characters are BRILLIANT, the setting and the themes were all so important and handled very well. And with each book I read from Casey, I learn just how talented they are at creating characters that anyone can find themselves in somewhere. Chloe Green, for instance, is our disaster bi MC who is so funny and has so much heart. Smith Parker is this gloriously sweet and kind boy (who, frankly, I would die for) and then Rory is a disaster gay but a disaster gay who cares SOO much but everyone believes he doesn't. And then there is the other friend group with Georgia, Benjy, and Ash, who are such vital pieces to Chloe's story while also shining individually as well.

I felt so much nostalgia reading this and wished so desperately that every queer kid living in these kinds of environments had/have queer friends who support each other like this. But Casey has kind of given us that in these characters. I can't rave about them enough. And the romance in this is wonderful as well (though I kind of think the friendships took the spotlight in this one). We get romance from many angles as well. I won't go too far into the other romances as it's so sweet and fun to see them unfold on the pages, but our central romance is an academic rivals-to-lovers if I've ever seen one. Two overachievers thinking they hate each other but are really super obsessed with one another? YES. Give me all of it.

Rating: 4.5

I didn't like the first two books by this author, so I'm surprised that I liked this one so much. This is like Paper Towns, but actually good.

I really loved this book - it was complete chaos at times in a delightfully witty way and I devoured it. The characters were multi-dimensional and.I feel like it kept me guessing in many ways. It was such a smart novel and I think that it will also resonate in even deeper ways with people with a Southern upbringing.

I loved hearing that Casey McQuiston was coming out with a YA book! This book was in a nutshell—a queer Papertowns by John Green.

Story follows a trio who all were kissed by Shara Wheeler right before she disappeared. They receive clues from Shara to try to find her. Love the premise—but again felt like I read this same plot in Papertowns.

I actually enjoyed the dynamic of the trio—Rory, Smith and Chloe. The romance was lacking and didn’t think it was even necessary to add in this case. The first half of the book was super fun and enjoyed the mystery, the second half left a little to be desired but still a solid 3.5 read for me. I enjoyed this author’s books and writing and looking forward to what she comes out with next in YA!

Thank you NetGallery & the publisher for for ARC! 🏳️‍🌈❤️

I really, really, really wanted to like this book. I have heard nothing but good praises from it but I didn't. I felt like this book had all fluff and no substance, which is fine but I guess it wasn't enough fluff for me to love. I felt like the main characters were lacking in quality and that the climax of the book was not that exciting. I will still recommend this book for the queer rom com it is. I hope I will change my mind about this book when I reread it. I did not hate this book nor did I love it, it was just ok.

In my opinion, Casey McQuiston can do no wrong. This book was SO GOOD. The writing is so readable, the characters are impeccable, and it deals with sensitive and pertinent tops with grace. I'll never not read something by this author.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.
3.5/5

This is really two books disguised as one.

The first book is a fun mystery, where you try to follow Chloe, Rory, and Smith, as they discover where Shara Wheeler is—and, along the way, discover more about the place they come from and who they are. The plot of this is interesting. I love clues and little journeys, and it was super cool to see Chloe try to decode them to solve the mystery of where Shara was. Rory and Smith were a delight, as well as Chloe’s other friends.

The second book is a much more typical YA contemporary with all the sweetness and fluff and awkwardness packed into one. It’s more focused on character dynamics and romance. When we lost the mystery, this book lost me a little, because I realized that I was more interested in the plot of this book than invested in Chloe’s life. Chloe is not a particularly likable character (more on that later) but you get the sense that it’s mostly on purpose, so it’s okay for the first half. However, it doesn’t fit too well in this second half, where things are supposed to be softer and happier.

I appreciated what this book tried to do—destigmatize Southern communities from the stereotypical Republican, bigoted, town to show that these places are filled with queer BIPOC (especially Black people) who are also finding their way in the world. I understand that this unlearning is part of Chloe’ character arc, but I would have appreciated it if we got to see more of this amazing community rather than just being told about it, because we’re stuck in Chloe’s self-righteous head.

I tried really hard to root for Chloe and Shara, because academic rivals to lovers sapphics is literally the best concept but the fact is that neither of them are particularly good people. Which is fine, I guess, cause teenagers are messy and we should let sapphics be messy and not perfect for once, but their brand of “not-perfect” reeked of superiority, which, in a book filled with much more sympathetic characters, is grating to read about. Chloe atones, if on a surface level, for her mistakes, but Shara doesn’t really. We’re left with a Shara who is hardly more developed than the mythical Shara we were chasing for a good portion of the book. I’m not really rooting for either of them as opposed to Georgia, Rory, Smith, and Summer.

Another thing against this book is that it feels pretty millennial and liberal, for a bunch of kids who are not millennials. Without spoilers, there’s a part that talks about how Jesus was a brown socialist and I couldn’t help but think about how liberals have just divorced the word socialist from its meaning, but that’s not really an issue with this book, just something I noticed.

To this book’s credit however, I sped through it. The flaws aside, it was still pretty enjoyable, so I would recommend it if you’re looking for a quick fun read!

I Kissed Shara Wheeler was a joy to read. The book addressed sensitive issues like identity crisis and religious bigotry in such an engaging and respectful way. Every character was three dimensional and jumped off the page and as always with Casey McQuiston, the LGBTQ+ representation was stellar.

I'm not a person who loves mysterious and thrillers, so I was a bit iffy picking this up but at this point I will read anything McQuiston writes. The book started off a little rough (which is why I gave it four stars) and it took me about 100 pages to really get invested in the story. I also couldn't shake the comparison between this novel and John Green's Looking for Alaska (which I really didn't enjoy).

The mystery about Shara’s disappearance and smart clues she left behind definitely had me trying to figure out the answer along with the characters. The character development and realistic approach to high school life was wonderful. I think this book was all about the characters, which I loved. I also liked that everyone was messy...including Chloe! And I liked that McQuiston gave her an "oh shit" moment, and had her realize on page that, yeah maybe she is a bit mean and judgmental. I'm also really glad the romance wasn't one where three people were fighting over the same girl...it was so refreshing.

I really enjoyed I Kissed Shara Wheeler but I still think my favorite McQuiston read is Red, White, and Royal Blue .

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I can't really find all the words to say how much I liked this book. It sort of just sucked me in from the start and got increasingly harder and harder to put down. The characters felt so real and alive and their relationships to queerness and religion were complex and fully thought out. Despite the painfully real things they dealt with, there was so much good in this book in the laughter and friendships and the ultimate hope found past high school and the institutions that make you feel like you're stuck in one single box.

I"m so ready to grab my physical copy when it comes out and re-read it many more times.

Casey really wrote a book that shows the ins and outs of identity and sexuality. It isn’t my favorite book from the author but it is very well written and a great book for 2022. The characters each have their own problems and are layered together to create a pretty perfect LGBTQ representation. Shara is a character that also has the styles of being a metaphor for the way that Chloe looks at the world. I love the twist on the bad boy next door, Rory, and the dumb jock, Smith. This has been very much a good book. I did notice that they misspelled Stephen Sondheim’s first name which I hope is something that is fixed from the ARC.

If you've liked other Casey McQuiston books, you'll like this one as well. Her other books have always felt to be on that borderline of YA anyway so it makes sense that she'd eventually write one that's actually YA.

I have to say it totally threw me for a loop that the book is explicitly stated to take place in 2022 and there's absolutely no mention or reference to the pandemic. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to read about the pandemic in my YA fluff reads, but it's definitely weird.

The protagonist is the kind of character I'd find insufferable IRL but is an absolute delight as a narrator. She's got a strong voice, clear goals, and the mistakes she makes and the things she does wrong are all perfectly believable and consistent.

The romance here is a lot more obsessive and less twee than McQuiston's other books, but in a fun rivals-to-lovers sort of way. Would recommend.

While the title makes sense within the context of the book, it doesn't really set the right vibe for the actual book.

It does suffer a bit from McQuiston's need to like throw in some sort of real life issue beyond the interpersonal plots. In this case there's a subplot about faking test scores and manipulating college admissions. It doesn't really go anywhere or add much to the plot. It's just kind of there.

I absolutely adored this book. It was a fun and riveting little mystery that spun out into a compelling and interesting romance that left me smiling. It did a great job of being light-hearted while also dealing with tough and complex issues (such as religious trauma and homophobia). Casey McQuiston is a master storyteller and I will buy everything they put to page.

I was given an ARC of this book by NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Once again, Casey McQuiston has written a book I want to live in! “I Kissed Shara Wheeler” feels like so many teen TV dramas and keeps you guessing until the end. At its core, this is a story of figuring yourself out while navigating the hell that is high school, but as is typical of her style, the author write is so many twists and turns that you honesty couldn’t predict the ending of you tried. I LOVE the characters in the book and I love that the MCs are forced to reflect on everything in order to realize WHAT exactly was going on with them.

If you know anything about me, you know Casey McQuiston is one of my all time favourite authors and I will read literally anything they write, so it's no surprise that I kissed Shara Wheeler was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I fully started reading this the moment I got a copy and finished it in less than a day (yes, I have an art history essay due, but this is more important than that).

As it is for every Casey McQuiston book, I loved everything about this. Again, as always, my favourite part was the characters. All the characters were well fleshed out and even the super minor characters were still given more than just a name. I absolutely loved reading about all the different friendships and relationships forming, but I was also happy to see how old friendships were kept up and brought into these new friend groups.

The plot was super fun as well. I was never sure what to expect from this book, and although there weren't any major twist, it was still intriguing and kept me invested the entire time.

I wasn't sure how McQuiston was going to handle the transition from Adult Romances to YA, but it was done seamlessly. It still felt very much like one of their stories, but it was clear that the audience had changed. Personally, I felt that the way the characters spoke and were written felt very much like teenagers. I've found that I struggle with some YA because the characters don't actually act like teenagers, but this felt very real and the characters were quite relatable.

So yes, this book is a 10/10 for me, 100% recommend, cannot wait to get a hold of a physical copy and for everyone else to read it.