Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she’s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that’s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal’s perfect progeny.
But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes.
On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she’s not the only one Shara kissed. There’s also Smith, Shara’s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara’s trail of clues and find her. It’ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square.
Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe—probably not, but maybe—more to Shara, too.
Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.
Kind of a book of three halves, this one. The first half is a mystery, with clues that we, the readers, don't know quite enough to unravel, so we're just watching the characters go from place to place and have reactions. The second half is a romance, more or less. But it doesn't matter, because behind, around and through that is a story about finding Your People and keeping hold of them no matter what's happening around you.
I don't understand why the main character ended up with the person they did; even if some of their actions were meant well, they were still executed horribly, and the gact that everyone just forgives everything upset me. But I forgive it for the sheer beauty of the Avengers Assemble scene in the Belltower. That is sheer written beauty.
This is the first of what I hope will be several books I read by this author, and judging by this one, I'm going to enjoy them a lot. If you like stories about supporting queerness in all its colours, you'll enjoy this one.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler is available now. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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