Name: Kiran Aftab's review of I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
Item: I Kissed Shara Wheeler
Rating: 1
Author: Kiran Aftab

Casey McQuiston

From the New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue comes a romantic comedy about chasing down what you want, only to find what you need...

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 the puritanical administration of 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.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler

Emma Hak-Kovacs

There was this one weekend, a million summers ago, when I sat on the shore drinking a frozen limeade, and I realized the only thing I wanted to look at was the way the sun hit the girls swimming in the lake.

The problem has always been this: When I look at you, I taste lime, and I see light on water.

Ash says, “My ideal body is no body at all."

Chloe snorts. "Just a head floating above a sexy void."

"That's so gender of me," Ash says, beginning to chisel out Smith's cheekbones.

“This is why we need you,” Georgia says. “Once in a generation, there is born a bisexual who can do math. You’re the chosen one.”

High school matters because it shapes how we see the world when we enter it. We carry the hurt with us, the confirmed fears, the insecurities people used against us. But we also carry the moment when someone gave us a chance, even though they didn't have to. The moment we watched a friend make a choice we didn't understand at first because they're brave in a different way. The moment a teacher told us they believed in us. The moment we told someone who we are and they accepted us without question. The moment we felt in love.

"Most of the things we are feeling right now are things we're feeling for the first time. We're learning what it means to feel them. What we mean to one another. Of course that matters.

There's a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else's backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being how and what and where it is.

Mey-Thip Mortensen

I learned that a lot of us—a lot more than I thought—are doing whatever it takes to survive in a place that doesn't feel like it wants us. I learned that survival is heavy on so many of us. And on a personal level, I realized I'd gotten so used to that weight, I stopped noticing how much of myself Id dedicated to carrying it.

It's a prom night they never had, and she's found the only person like her in a small town the size of the world, and they're alone in a quiet room kissing in front of God and everybody.

Shara doesn't throw things away because they mean nothing to her. She throws things away because they mean too much. 

In front of the mirrors in the girls' bathroom, Chloe leans over the sink to fix the tip of her eyeliner wing while Shara perches on the next one.

"What brand of eyeliner do you use?" Shara asks. 

"Why?" Chloe says, turning to her. "Do you want to try it?" 

"I can put it on for you," Chloe says. "Come here." 

"Im good, actually," Shara says, jumping down. She tries to make a haughty exit. 

I went to a party witha bunch of people I didn't know, and someone put stars around my eyes, and I noticed stuff about my face I never noticed before. I saw myself in the rearview mirror of a person I've loved since I was thirteen, and I felt endless. Like, Holy Spirt endless. Maybe that’s what it means to feel like myself.

he’s like, hold up🤨🖐️ what do you mean by that?

"Okay, but I feel like that too, and I’m not nonbinary." 

There's the slightest change in Ash's face. "What do you mean?”

How can that tbe possible, to feel estranged from a place where everyone loves you? To owe your life to a place and still want to run? I've been trying and trying to figure out what it is about me that makes me feel this way and why it feels so deep and so big that it must be most of me, the skin stretching between my knuckles and across my shoulders and then the bones under them too. 

they are so fucking funny 😭 i’m not even over exaggerating, they make me laugh so goddamn hard

"You're always in my shit! Every time I go to Shara's house, there's Rory in his window like a fucking Elf on a Shelf. You're always just—just there.”

 "I live there! I'm allowed to be at my house!"

they are like SO gonna end up together, gay bitches smh

He crosses back toward Ace, his hip brushing Rory's knees as he passes. Rory absently reaches you tried down to touch his own knee as he watches.

she's cycled through a half dozen different lesbian aesthetics trying to figure out which one was her.

Lindsay

I learned that a lot of us— a lot more than I thought— are doing whatever it takes to survive in a place that doesn’t feel like it wants us. I learned that survival is heavy on so many of us. And on a personal level, I realized I’d gotten so used to that weight, I stopped noticing how much of myself I’d dedicated to carrying it.

I think a lot about the movie Tremors, starring Kevin Bacon. It’s about a bunch of rednecks fighting giant sandworms in the desert. In the first twenty minutes, Kevin Bacon finds some guy’s hard hat on the ground full of brains, because the director needs the viewer to see the brains, and Kevin Bacon has to be the one who sees it because he’s the star of the movie. But in the real world, if you happened to see somebody’s brains by accident, it would mess you up. The whole movie would be about the fact that you saw somebody’s brains.

 the time the average Willowgrove student is my age, that feeling you felt when you saw or heard something really bad might not be such a big deal anymore. It’s just finding the brains. It’s the bad thing that had to happen to move the plot forward. You’re so busy shooting sandworms with an elephant gun that you’re not even thinking about the brains, even though they’re what scared you enough to go get an elephant gun in the first place. But when you’re in high school— when you’re only twenty minutes into the movie— the brains are everything.

Whenever I think about God’s plan for my life, I think it’s to keep some kids from seeing the brains. Or at least showing them something in the desert that isn’t brains. A cool cactus, maybe. I don’t know. Metaphors are hard. I’m not the literature teacher.

The way Willowgrove has always worked, from what Chloe has seen and heard, is that there are enough students comfortable with the way things are to create the feeling that you’re the only one who doesn’t belong. It can be hard, when all the rules claim to be good and moral and godly, to feel like you can challenge them without admitting something bad and wrong about yourself. And if you can get past that, it’s a free- fall into small- town gossip, and you never come out the other side with all your best intentions intact.

“If the girl’s going to end up with a dude who’s a monster,” Chloe says, “it needs to be—”

“Phantom,” Georgia finishes for her as they head outside, because she’s heard it five hundred thousand times.

“Monster on the outside, but on the inside, he cares about her career goals!” Chloe says. “Call me old- fashioned, but a man’s place is in the basement, preparing vocal exercises for his more talented wife.”

While she does like boys, she generally finds the traits of a compelling villain— arrogance, malice, an angsty backstory— tedious in a man. Like, what do hot guys with long dark hair even have to be that upset about? Get a clarifying shampoo and suck it up, Kylo Ren. So your rich parents sent you to magic camp and you didn’t make any friends. Big deal.

Gloria 💖

“Shara slips the necklace under the neckline of her dress and straightens her shoulders, and Chloe realizes this is Shara when nobody's looking. Born so smart and so curious and so fucking proud that not even Jesus could convince her she was wrong. Saved by God first and her God complex second Going through hell and painting pink nail polish over it.”

Emma Wolfe

What does it mean??? Shara Wheeler is the most tragic heterosexual to ever cram herself into a Brandy Melville crop top. 

Julie Wagner

Genesis (@whisperingchapters)

Kiran Aftab

Dnf at 18% because I really cannot read books about high schoolers rn

danakim

Needed a quick book to get out of my reading slump, and this book delivered. Even though nothing too exciting was happening, I couldn't put it down solely because I wanted to know what happened at the end. I think it dragged a bit towards the end and found myself not really engaged unless Chole and Shara were interacting but all in all still enjoyed the read.

Very good story that takes place in Bible belt country, for once I enjoyed a romance because it’s not only that. The characters are well developed, I don’t care if I am not Y A anymore to appreciate that story😊! Recommended of course. 

Barbara

isabelle

🦇 I Kissed Shara Wheeler Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD Have you ever done a scavenger hunt? What was at the end?

🦇 There's only one thing standing in Chloe Green's way of winning valedictorian: the town's favorite and Chloe's rival, Shara Wheeler. A month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe, then does the most infuriating thing: vanishes. Chloe and two other boys Shara kissed are left with a series of cryptic notes; a scavenger hunt to find her. Can Chloe drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair and square, or is there something else behind Shara's disappearance? 

💜 Alright John Green fans. This one's for you. As always, Casey McQuiston's prose is a breath of fresh air. The narration instantly pulls you in as if you're listening to an old friend (the easily frustrated, type A kind you have to be patient with). Warning: this story WILL transport you back to high school. I can't explain it, but it felt like I was on campus, watching my fellow students live as the protagonists of their own unspoken stories, the entire time. 

There's so much to love in this one. For the sake of being succinct (you bookish bats know I can ramble):

💌 Chloe's amazing, artistic queer moms

💌 The EASY, natural queerness (it's never questioned, it just IS, as it tends to be in a CM book)

💌 The snippets from the burn pile before chapters (giving us glimpses into the minds of side characters)

💌 Chloe and Shara are both equally messy and chaotic

💌 The rivalry, the frustration, the angst

💌 The reminder that side characters are going through it, too (don't forget to check on your best friends)

💌 The prose, the banter, the jokes; I literally laughed aloud, and that takes a lot

💜 This story is a reminder that there's so much more to a person than what you see on the surface. That sometimes you can romanticize someone you hardly know. And that you can unknowingly do that to yourself, too. 

💙 While I was reading this, a few people told me they DNF. The second half is SO much stronger than the first, though. I think the pacing is a bit exhausting because the scavenger hunt drags a little, but it's the second half where we see SO much character development from Chloe, Shara, Rory, and Smith. 

💙 Religion (the story is set in small town Alabama, at a Christian school) plays a big part in the story. While that could have led me to disconnect, it didn't. It only adds to the discussion that queerness and acceptance (in ourselves and each other) needs to be an ongoing discussion. That sometimes you need to step outside of your bubble to see the world from a new lens. 

🦇 Recommended for fans of Looking for Alaska, Paper Town, She Gets the Girl, Delilah Green Doesn't Care, and Imogen, Obviously.

❝ There’s a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else’s backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being how and what and where it is. ❞

❝ What’s the point of wanting and being wanted in return if the person they want isn’t truly you? ❞

❝ “You know… if being a guy feels like something you have to do, like it’s an obligation or something…” Ash says carefully. “Maybe think about that.” ❞

❝ This is the real tragedy: Everything extraordinary about her is trapped behind the myth. ❞

❝ There are enough students comfortable with the way things are to create the feeling that you’re the only one who doesn’t belong. It can be hard, when all the rules claim to be good and moral and godly, to feel like you can challenge them without admitting something bad and wrong about yourself. ❞

❝ There are things out there for you that you haven’t even thought of yet, that you don’t even know how to think of yet. Who you are here doesn’t have to be the same as who you are out there. And if the person you feel like you have to be in this town doesn’t feel right to you, you’re allowed to leave. You’re allowed to exist. Even if it means existing somewhere else.” ❞

❝ “And to the girl who kissed me,” she says, “I have done some of the best work of my life because of you. And I know you have done some of the best work of your life because of me. I don’t know a better way to explain what love means to two people like us.” ❞

Jazelle H

🦇 I Kissed Shara Wheeler Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD Have you ever done a scavenger hunt? What was at the end?
 
🦇 There's only one thing standing in Chloe Green's way of winning valedictorian: the town's favorite and Chloe's rival, Shara Wheeler. A month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe, then does the most infuriating thing: vanishes. Chloe and two other boys Shara kissed are left with a series of cryptic notes; a scavenger hunt to find her. Can Chloe drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair and square, or is there something else behind Shara's disappearance? 

💜 Alright John Green fans. This one's for you. As always, Casey McQuiston's prose is a breath of fresh air. The narration instantly pulls you in as if you're listening to an old friend (the easily frustrated, type A kind you have to be patient with). Warning: this story WILL transport you back to high school. I can't explain it, but it felt like I was on campus, watching my fellow students live as the protagonists of their own unspoken stories, the entire time. 
There's so much to love in this one. For the sake of being succinct (you bookish bats know I can ramble):
💌 Chloe's amazing, artistic queer moms
💌 The whole found family of it all
💌 The EASY, natural queerness (it's never questioned, it just IS, as it tends to be in a CM book)
💌 The snippets from the burn pile before chapters (giving us glimpses into the minds of side characters)
💌 Chloe and Shara are both equally messy and chaotic
💌 The rivalry, the frustration, the angst
💌 Every side pairing
💌 All the theater kids
💌 Smith and Ash's interaction (AGH!)
💌 Rory and Smith (Just...more AGH)
💌 The reminder that side characters are going through it, too (don't forget to check on your best friends)
💌 The prose, the banter, the jokes; I literally laughed aloud, and that takes a lot

💜 This story is a reminder that there's so much more to a person than what you see on the surface. That sometimes you can romanticize someone you hardly know. And that you can unknowingly do that to yourself, too. 

💙 While I was reading this, a few people told me they DNF. The second half is SO much stronger than the first, though. I think the pacing is a bit exhausting because the scavenger hunt drags a little, but it's the second half where we see SO much character development from Chloe, Shara, Rory, and Smith. 

💙 Religion (the story is set in small town Alabama, at a Christian school) plays a big part in the story. While that could have led me to disconnect, it didn't. It only adds to the discussion that queerness and acceptance (in ourselves and each other) needs to be an ongoing discussion. That sometimes you need to step outside of your bubble to see the world from a new lens. 

🦇 Recommended for fans of Looking for Alaska, Paper Town, She Gets the Girl, Delilah Green Doesn't Care, and Imogen, Obviously.

✨ The Vibes ✨
💌 Sapphic Romance
💋 Queer Cast
💌 Coming-of-Age
💋 Young Adult
💌 Enemies to Lovers
💋 Small Town 
💌 Slight Mystery

💬 Quotes 
❝ There’s a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else’s backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being how and what and where it is. ❞
❝ What’s the point of wanting and being wanted in return if the person they want isn’t truly you? ❞
❝ “You know… if being a guy feels like something you have to do, like it’s an obligation or something…” Ash says carefully. “Maybe think about that.” ❞
❝ This is the real tragedy: Everything extraordinary about her is trapped behind the myth. ❞
❝ There are enough students comfortable with the way things are to create the feeling that you’re the only one who doesn’t belong. It can be hard, when all the rules claim to be good and moral and godly, to feel like you can challenge them without admitting something bad and wrong about yourself. ❞
❝ There are things out there for you that you haven’t even thought of yet, that you don’t even know how to think of yet. Who you are here doesn’t have to be the same as who you are out there. And if the person you feel like you have to be in this town doesn’t feel right to you, you’re allowed to leave. You’re allowed to exist. Even if it means existing somewhere else.” ❞
❝ “And to the girl who kissed me,” she says, “I have done some of the best work of my life because of you. And I know you have done some of the best work of your life because of me. I don’t know a better way to explain what love means to two people like us.” ❞

Bria

Gostei do livro, mas senti que demorou muito para receber respostas e compreender qual o sentido de tudo o que se estava a passar. Custou-me ficar cativado, mas quando aconteceu foi uma leitura leve e ótima 

Ana Sofia Marques Coelho Fernandes 

Nova

Fun, breezy read! It’s very Gen Z, very relatable, the gay group of kids sound like a lot like me and the silly little gay people in my phone (my internet friends). I have a tickling suspicion that Shara Wheeler is modeled after Quinn Fabray, just less overtly mean but equally insane and calculating. It’s hilarious how almost everything wrong with her can be attributed to her repressed lesbianism, bless her. Shara as a character is what kept me going! Chloe is fun, and I see so much of myself in her, especially when she had to move from LA to the middle of nowhere Alabama and how she coped with the transition. I loved Georgia too, and not only did I get attached to her because she’s a lesbian, but also because this bit she said about False Beach: “But if everyone like us leaves False Beach, it’s never gonna change. Someone has to stay.” It’s so much like how I think about being a lesbian in my country, despite my other gay friends wanting to leave, I do not have that (pressing) desire. Maybe not yet, who knows! Personally, I wasn’t brought up Christian, but I do know one or two things about religious trauma, and I really wish I had what these kids (like Summer and her church) have or the equivalent of that in my own religion. This was fun, I can see myself picking it up again from time to time if I want a catty bitch fight, but gay, in the form of a book.

Cute and cheesy sapphic love story. I found it very predictable in some ways but there are some parts that even brought me into tears when realizing the similarities between some of the characters and I. Would recommend if you are looking for a cute romance 

mari

Malia

LOOK okay, i WANT to love it. you have NO idea how much i want to love it. its academic rival to lovers YA that 1) sets in a small town and has religious trauma as a theme, 2) written by an author who everyone sings praises for, and 3) its sapphic. its hard enough to find sapphic medias, let alone the one thats has all the reason for me to like it?

but it turns out... the academic rival slash enemies-to-lovers just dont make me feel connected as much? like it misses something, a stage where they at least become friends for a bit. and i cant seem to like the main character that much... too bad :/ rory and smith are cute and ash is such a great nonbinary representation though.

akynn 

I tore through this and almost cried multiple times. I wish I had this book when I was a little younger!! 5 fucking stars

(Actually, I wish we'd gotten a little more of the Christian Feelings but that might also have punched me too hard)

Julie Rubens

The message behind this was really beautiful and I loved the ending a lot! It’s such an important story to tell. 
I did however find the storyline a bit boring and I honestly wasn’t that invested in it.
Would definitely recommend it though, because it was still a nice book!

Kendall McClain

Gay academic rivals<3 so adorable, definitely Casey McQuistons best!

Tatiana

destiny

this was insanely dramatic but i had so much fun 

also do people talk like that off the internet…

oh wow being gay and having religious trauma

rita

GOODREADS DELETED MY REVIEW NO!! 

4.5 stars, my one critique is that i couldn’t keep track of all the characters because some were 1d and messy and there were so many. the book was super well written, at one point i wanted to stop reading bc i hated shara sm. cried a few times through it, especially the acknowledgements (not really the book though) and the part about shara letting go. the second half of this book is perfection!! the beginning was eh and i didn’t really care about / sort of lost interest ? in actually finding shara during the middle of the book. rory and smith were written so well, i didn’t see them coming but they’re perfect!! the burn pile notes was a nice addition but it made me sad that they weren’t really … looked at? like idk i wouldn’t burn my mom’s first day of school note or a random essay my teacher accidentally gave me. i would probably take it home and show my brother or something ! i don’t know! anyway. chloe please teach me how to study! loved this book queerness is so beautiful! i need to buy this book so i can annotate every thought i have and reread it whenever and bookmark every single page. 

i expected it to be more of a romance (which the 2nd half definitely was) which might be why i didn’t like the first half as much? i should stop going into books with expectations about anything tbh it makes it a lot more enjoyable. anyway!!! loved this book so so much i need to reread it now that i’ve read it once so i can understand everything in context! love love love 

reading queer books makes me never want to read a straight book again LMAO regardless we move
pg 269,282, 305-306 (shara ur so real), 311, 332, (or 311-332? instructions unclear), 347-351

Hershelle Villanueva

the tension build-up was done undeniably great and i was just rooting for them to confess to each other the whole time!! the supporting characters were very endearing too but i just hoped chloe and shara had more moments together... i have to say i still love 'one last stop' more but nevertheless i still liked this

Kristin Boren

There was a point in this book where I was so furious with both Chloe and Shara I didn't think I'd recover. It got better. Being a teen is hard. Maybe I need a break from YA

Ivy 

3.5 stars 
A bit too many Disney Channel Original vibes even for a ya novel... but cute overall.

i’m sorry but i couldn’t stand the main character. she was insufferable, the book literally starts with breaking into someone elses house for a very poor reason. i hate the way how she thinks and i also hated the “rivalry” between her and Shara. only great characters were Ash, Smith and Rory.

Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

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Genesis (@whisperingchapters) &
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston