I Kissed Shara Wheeler
by Casey McQuiston
YA Contemporary, LGBTQ
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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.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
First and foremost, I have to start off by saying that Casey McQuiston completely understands the character assignment. This is a writer who consistently has such strong, well-rounded characters who literally feel like real people. And they don’t stop with just the main character, but they keep going with all the wonderful and hilarious side characters. This was the case for Red, White and Royal Blue and One Last Stop, and it was no different for their latest book, I Kissed Shara Wheeler.
This is McQuiston’s first YA novel, and I thought it was splendid. It follows Chloe, after her arch-enemy Shara goes missing not long after they share a kiss, and when Shara leaves Chloe notes and clues, she is adamant to solve the mystery of classmate’s disappearance and get to the root of why she wanted to vanish into thin air.
This was a great mystery, and I think what I loved most about this was all the queer issues McQuiston addressed, and ones that you don’t see enough of. The idea of found family, the idea of gender identities and sexualities, the total liberation that comes with exploring them. Very much begs the question, “why stuff yourself into a box your entire life when you don’t actually have to? When you can step outside and see what’s waiting on the other side?”
However, I do have to say this did not quite have that same verve as McQuiston’s previous novels, both of which I adored. I do not think Shara Wheeler was a bad novel, but in comparison to RWRB and One Last Stop, it just didn’t quite live up to the same standard. It reminded me a lot of John Green’s Paper Towns, and I felt there was an air of originality this book was missing unfortunately. I think I would have liked to see just something a bit different, because I did kept getting struck with a feeling of deja vu whilst reading this.
Although saying that, I did enjoy it, and McQuiston really set the bar high with their first two novels that it will be a challenge to meet that bar again – but if they did it with One Last Stop after the phenomenal RWRB, then I have no doubt they can do it again.
THE ROYAL BOOKSHELF 