I Kissed Shara Wheeler

For the last 4 years, Shara, the prom queen, and Chloe, the theatre girl with a no-BS attitude, have been competing for the role of valedictorian. Chloe is so close to the finish line when Shara kisses her a month before graduation and then vanishes. On a hunt for answers, she finds out that not only did Shara kiss Smith, her boyfriend, and Rory, her next-door neighbor, who has been secretly crushing on her for years, but she also left them clues on her whereabouts. Determined to win fair and square, Chloe dives head first in the chase for Shara, dragging Smith and Rory along. Perhaps there is more to Shara than they thought, and maybe, just maybe, they didn't know themselves all that well either after all.

I didn't love this book, but then I read Casey McQuiston's acknowledgement at the end about how this book was for the weirdest, warmest, queerest Bible Belt kids who deserve to have over-the-top high school rom-com stories to read and realized that it's ok if I didn't love it because this book wasn't for me, which is why it still deserves a good rating. However, I regularly read YA stories. I love a good, well-written high school drama by John Green, so I was surprised when I wasn't as invested in this story. After all, it has strong Looking for Alaska vibes. I started reading reviews, and that's where I understood. A fellow reviewer wrote, "It's hard to love a book when you enjoy the secondary characters more than the main characters", and that's exactly how I feel about this book. I wanted to know more about Rory and Smith and about Ash and Georgia! I just didn't care that much about Chloe and Shara. The chase, the letters, and the writing were fun, though!