I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston | Spoiler-Free Review

"What do you say when The Girl tells you that you're The Girl to her?"
- I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

    Ever since Red, White & Royal Blue came out, I've considered myself a Casey McQuiston stan. Both of their adult romances I've adored, which is especially high praise from me, considering we all know how much I don't read romance. So when I heard that they were coming out with a YA sapphic romance, obviously it jumped to first place on my TBR. 

    I Kissed Shara Wheeler came out last month, on May 3rd. I had to wait an excruciating five weeks until my hold from the library came in, until finally it was in my hands! And I read it, and...let's just say I'm disappointed. 

    Let's do synopsis: I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston follows high school senior Chloe Green, a California transplant in Alabama, whose biggest achievement would be to earn valedictorian at her graduation ceremony. Or, more specifically, to beat Shara Wheeler for valedictorian. Chloe and Shara have been true academic rivals since their freshman year when Chloe transferred to Willowgrove Christian Academy, trying their absolute hardest to crush the other in GPA scores. But when Shara kisses Chloe, and then vanishes a week later, their rivalry is put on pause as Chloe teams up with Shara's boyfriend and the boy-next-door to figure out where she disappeared to. 

    The premise sounded promising to me, kind of like a queer Paper Towns. What I wasn't expecting was how bored I would be by the whole ordeal. Also annoyed. Chloe was a super frustrating character to reading from, because she literally could not stop thinking about Shara, and then constantly denied she cared about her. It was the worst kind of dramatic irony. But I also kind of understood where she was initially coming from, because I, too, do not get why everyone in this town is obsessed with Shara Wheeler. She seemed rather self-absorbed and more than a little basic, and the kind of person I would've tried my hardest to avoid in high school. However, I also am from California, and that's exactly how Chloe felt at the beginning of the book (minus the whole, you know, kissing thing) so maybe that's just what people focus on in rural Alabama? I don't know, I've never been there. 

"'From the moment I arrived at Willow Grove, I was confident I would spend the next 4 years of my high school career counting the days until I could escape this place, which has the spiritual aura of a Mountain Dew bottle filled with dip spit in the tour bus cup holder of a Christian Rock Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band.'"
 - I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

    Another thing that wasn't great was the pacing of the novel. This is a 350 page book, right? Well, the first 250 pages are about trying to find Shara, and therefore the most predictable and drawn out 250 pages I've read in a while, and the last 100 pages are an entirely new plotline, with reveal after twist after revelation, and they were excellent. Truly, if this book were just those last 100 pages, I probably would've enjoyed it way more. That last third really saved this book in my eyes.

    For me, the best part of the book was the side characters, hands down. They were so much more interesting to me than Chloe and Shara, I would have much rather read a book from Georgia's POV, or Smith. All of the side characters have so much growth in the little page time they're allotted, and I feel like Chloe and Shara were both rather one-dimensional. Sure, they seemed to have entire characters arcs from their own points of view (as in, Shara seemed to change in Chloe's eyes, and vice-versa) but as the reader I was able to figure out exactly who they were at the start of the novel, and that didn't really change. 

    All this being said, I still did enjoy this, even if it didn't meet my expectations. I would recommend this book to any baby queers, people who like small-town vibes, and anyone with a sharp-at-the-edges sense of humor.

    I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars, with a CAWPILE score of 5.29.

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Until next time!