I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

Inspired by Where’d You Go Bernadette and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Mcquiston wrote I Kissed Shara Wheeler, a queer romantic comedy set at Willowgrove Christian Academy.

About The Book 📚

Title: I Kissed Shara Wheeler

Author: Casey McQuiston

Publication Date: May 3, 2022

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books

Suggested Reader Age: Young Adult (language, teen alcohol and drug use, teen vaping)

Genre: Contemporary Romance, Mystery

About The Author

“Casey McQuiston is a New York Times bestselling author of romantic comedies and a pie entusiast. She writes stories about smart people with bad manners falling in love. Born and raised in southern Louisiana, she now lives in New York City with her poodle mix/personal assistant, Pepper.”
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17949486.Casey_McQuiston

https://www.caseymcquiston.com/

“To get the girl, first you have to find her.“

My Review

› I Kissed Shara Wheeler begins 12 hours after Shara left, 42 days before graduation. The main character is Chloe, a girl from LA with two lesbian moms. She’s smart and self-centred and yearns to be seen. Her academic nemesis is Shara, the principal’s “perfect” daughter with shiny blonde hair, pale pink nail polish, and long-time football star boyfriend Smith. Shara and Chloe want valedictorian and they’ll do anything to get it. Two days ago Shara KISSED Chloe. Out of nowhere. With no explanation. Shara also planted a surprise one on her neighbour Rory, the “brooding bad boy” with dark, curly hair and light brown skin. Then she fell off the face of the earth. Her parents haven’t reported her missing, but her boyfriend and friends have no idea where she is. Chloe doesn’t want to win valedictorian by default. She’s determined to find Shara so Chloe can win fair and square.

“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.”

› I use the CAWPILE method to rate books.
0-3 Really bad
4-6 Mediocre
7-9 Really good
10 Outstanding

› Characters: 10
1 point each
Goal, motivation, strengths, flaws, external conflict, internal conflict, backstory, characteristics, interesting side characters, and diversity.

› Atmosphere: 8
2 points each
Setting, descriptions, world-building, felt-appropriate emotions, mood.

› Writing Style: 10
2 points each
quality (beautiful, cliche, wordy), readability, style, dialogue, and non-repetitive.
The story is told with mixed media:
1. a countdown to graduation
2. messages left on pink cards by Shara
3. “notes from the burn pile”
4. notes passed between students and found in the back of notebooks

› Plot: 6
2 pts each
beginning, middle, end, page-turner? climax?

› Intrigue: 10
did I want to keep reading?

› Logic: 9
remove a point for confusion, plot holes, and elements that don’t make sense.

› Enjoyment: 9
overall experience

Average 8.9

1.1-2.2 = ★
2.3-4.5 = ★★
4.6-6.9 = ★★★
7-8.9 = ★★★★
9-10 = ★★★★★

My Rating ★★★★

› Final Thoughts
• In McQuiston’s own words, “a lot of this book is about coming of age queer in the religious South”. Her blog post entitled “God-Honoring Trauma Dumping” is incredibly candid and parts of what she said hit me in my heart. I attended Catholic school from Kindergarten to Grade 10 and it’s scary how much that experience gave me guilt that I carry with me still at 41 years old. “It’s hard to know you’re being traumatized when you don’t know anything else…We all grow up around stuff that leaves marks. My marks just happened to be in the shape of a cross…It was a culture of shame and guilt and performance, shrinking and hiding and purging and having every intimate part of you picked apart and assessed on a morality scale you didn’t even understand.” (from God-Honoring Trauma Dumping)

“Shara is a book about loving the place that made you and also sometimes hating the person it made you into.”

I wasn’t incredibly impressed with this book when I first finished it. After reading McQuistin’s blog post I understand my initial dislike of it was my own anger/shame/guilt I still carry with me from my childhood/teen years. I have a lot to personally unpack, and I can’t imagine how much this book would benefit every single teenager growing up today. This should be required reading in every high school.