Let me preface by saying this: I am a high school librarian (in Texas) who reads a LOT of YA (of all types) and personally, a lot of contemporary and historical adult romance, so I've read Casey McQuinston's previous books and enjoyed them. However, I think she really SHINES here with this YA book. It is engaging, funny, just an overall fun read. The pacing is great and the overall spotlight on having a place in high school to grow into yourself is wonderful.
So, with that being said, there will probably be some criticism from ADULTS who have read Casey McQuinston's OLS and RWRB expecting it to be the same writing style. McQuiston keeps the pacing YA perfect here and the broad cast of characters are perfect for this genre.
I loved this book and can't wait to get it in our library.
Thanks so much for the ARC!

I can’t wait to recommend this book to students who loved John Green’s Paper Towns and Karen McManus’s One of Us is Lying. The characters and plot in McQuiston’s latest book are as phenomenal as expected. Chloe Green is a strong character and I loved working through the mystery of Shara Wheeler with her. I finished the book a few days ago and I’m missing my new group of friends from IKSW.

What a whirlwind of a book. It was somehow everything I thought and at the same time nothing. It surprised me at so many turns and at others was what I thought. I love that. I love thinking I know a book and then the author being like “haha sike” . Chile and Shara are such complicated characters I love it. This is what it’s like to be queer and grow up with religion being a prominent thing in your life. This is what it’s like going from CA to middle of nowhere where no one supports you accept for a couple people. I’ve lived these things and it was so amazing seeing it in book form.

All of it was so interesting and complex but so simple at the same time if that makes sense. I love Rory and Smith. Seeing Smith come to terms with his possible non-binaryness really hit for me as someone who relatively recently figured that out. Rory and Smith are adorable together. I saw the chemistry and that they liked each other from the beginning and I wish them the best.

Georgia and Summer I didn’t see coming and omg I love it. It makes so much sense. Ace, Ash, Benjy are all so awesome. Shoutout to the parents that were supportive in this book because they’re amazing. Im lucky enough to have one of those and I know it’s not something everyone does .

Casey McQuiston’s writing and characters were a delight to read as always! I enjoyed getting a chance to read their YA debut, and honestly I had a lot of fun while reading.

I will admit, it took me a bit to get into it because the first half of the book felt like a sapphic retelling of Paper Towns, but by the time I hit 50% it really shook things up and stood well as its own thing. That’s when I started to love it.

I loved Chloe’s journey over the course of the book, and how this quest to find Shara led her to meeting/working with people she never would have given the time of day before. Seeing Chloe grow over the course of the novel when she thought she had no need to was really refreshing and lovely.

Overall, this was a great read and a solid YA debut! I can’t wait for others to have a chance to read it.

BOOKSMART meets (a slightly more wholesome) PRETTY LITTLE LIARS in McQuiston's next knock out of a novel. This book is love letter to messy girls and queer kids hailing from the Bible Belt. Ever want to go a little feral? To raise a little hell? To be gay and do crime? This is the book for you!

Cute, though fairly ridiculous romantic story about the seemingly perfect prom queen type and a smart outcast.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley as an educator and I am immeasurably grateful!!

I literally dropped everything I was reading to get to the new Casey McQuiston book this weekend. Red, White, and Royal Blue changed my life immeasurably, and One Last Stop was a light in an otherwise grim year for me personally. So imagine my sheer pleasure at hearing that they were going to be writing a YA book-a book I could actually share with my students. (It was pleasure of the sheer and unadulterated kind, in case you were wondering.)

And just like any other CM book, the characters, the pacing, and the plot did not disappoint. The same cheeky wordplay, repartee, and diverse and lovable characters we've all come to expect from a CM novel were all here. Their observations of the hierarchy of high school life was spot on. What they managed to capture the most, though, was that feeling inside that some of us carried through those years, a flint that turns into a spark that turns into a burning flame--a hot feeling of knowing you're different than everyone else.

The main character, Chloe Green, from whose POV we get the entire story, is a non-religious queer girl with two moms inside the isolated world of a Christian school in a small Southern town. As a closeted queer who went to a Catholic high school myself, I could relate to Chloe's insular feelings and small, sneaky acts of dress code rebellion to feel like you were doing something to show you weren't like everyone around you and assert your you-ness to the world. She's not here to make you like her; she's here to be Valedictorian, proof positive that not only does she think she's better than everyone else, but she actually is. This trait doesn't automatically make her likable, that's okay-adolescents are complicated creatures, and Chloe's growth as she has to realign everything she thought she knew about everyone around her is one of the pleasures of this book.

To tell you the truth, the object of the book, Shara Wheeler herself, does not come off as particularly likable at all for the majority of the book, putting her friends, family, frenemies, and enemies alike through a wild goose chase that leads practically nowhere--except directly to the confrontations of feelings and expectations that the characters were holding inside themselves all along. And that is the evil genius of Shara Wheeler that Chloe and the others that Shara have pulled into her orbit all must confront.

I am so, so excited to share I Kissed Shara Wheeler with my students. It's well-written, fast-paced, and the diversity of characters can absolutely not be beat. I've come to realize that CM loves a little mystery solving crew, Scooby Doo-style, in their books, and this time the mystery gets to take center stage. It has all the good feels we've now come to expect after completing a McQuiston novel.

I love how this author keeps churning out adorable stories with such great queer representation. This one was a joy to read- I loved all the characters! Thank you so much for this ARC!

There are so many things I want to say about this book and at the same time I don't know how to put how much I appreciate it into words, but here is me trying:

I never went to Christian school, but I grew up going to Sunday School and Church and lived in a very small town. This book does a wonderful job describing that experience from the perspective of someone who is more of an outsider that was thrown into this environment. I think because of that degree of separation, it was easier to process some of the things the other characters were going through. It also did an excellent job of showing how those things can still wear at you.

The romance in this book was so satisfying. All the beats felt perfect in both heartfelt and hilarious ways. The side characters also felt vibrant, funny, and real.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My actual rating of this book is 4.5 stars. I had an unexpectedly fun time with this book! While I loved McQuiston's two previous books, I was a little less sure about this one going in because these days I am not too interested in reading books set during high school. However, it was easy for me to reconnect with the magical feeling of being about to graduate and so ultimately I wasn't too bothered by the high school setting in this book. This book so nicely captures various aspects of the difficulties of being young and queer in the American South and how religion can be an intimate part of the experience whether one is religious or not. I think fans of McQuiston's previous books will enjoy this book as well!

Casey McQuiston's YA debut is full of charm and wonderful writing. The characters are unique and fresh, and the romances are well done!

Absolutely could not stop reading this book, once again this author has found a way to touch on real world issues with humor and characters who you really root for.

A total delight. I will read anything McQuiston writes and this is my favorite of theirs so far. Funny and sweet and a little subversive without giving me unpleasant flashbacks to my own traumatic high school experiences. Exactly what I want out of a YA read.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book.
As soon as I finished this book, my first thought was "I can't wait for this to get banned in public schools."
McQuiston held nothing back when tackling huge topics like religion, sexuality, and societal expectations. Her biggest accomplishment is how she managed to tackles those topics with kindness and humor. McQuiston has a gift for making sure you fall in love with every single character, no matter how minor. I wish I had been given this book when I was in high school. Character development 10/10
My favorite quotes:

"But you work backwards from what you have."
"Moral of the story... Sometimes you're the toxic bitch."
"I'm in love with a monster turducken."

This book feels like a love letter to queer teens growing up in conservative towns, small towns, towns with completely unchecked homophobia and transphobia. This book is an extension of empathy and understanding to queer teens who have been told there is something wrong with them, who feel like they will never be able to come out to their families, who have never seen hopeful possibilities for their futures if they were to be open about themselves, and for queer teens who haven’t even realized the truth about themselves because they have never been given the language, the freedom, and the unconditional love to wonder about and explore who they are.

In that sense, I am very grateful this book exists. I think if this book had existed when I was a teenager, I would have loved it. As it stands, reading it as an adult, I can wholeheartedly appreciate the message and the impact this will have on queer teens, but it doesn’t quite hit home for me anymore the way it once would have. That’s okay. I’m not the target audience. But there are countless kids in small towns right now who need this book, and so I’m grateful to Casey McQuiston for writing it.

The strongest part of this book for me was the message, but unfortunately aspects of the plot didn’t work for me. I found the culmination of the scavenger hunt to be anticlimactic (maybe it was supposed to be?), and the romance was not one I particularly rooted for because mostly I needed a better hashing out at the end between the characters about how they were actually feeling (without anymore lying and manipulation!).

That being said, the side characters were the highlight of this book for me. By the end, I really loved all of the side characters and found myself wondering what a book featuring each of them as the main character might look like.

Not my favorite Casey McQuiston book, but I did appreciate it for what it was doing.

CAUTION: SPOILERS!
I've had to sit on this review for a while after reading the book. I was OBSESSED with Red, White, and Royal Blue, and then really loved One Last Stop. This one did not hit me like they did. But that's not to say it wasn't a good story. It really shows readers that if you stick with your gut, you can make a difference. It had a lot of fun and fast paced storytelling. I loved the Paper Towns feel with the notes. I liked the characters making others get out of their comfort zone. I liked the side characters alot. Particularly Smith. He was definitely my favorite character.
A few things that didn't sit well with me: I really didn't like the main character. In previous books I've connected with the main characters and it made me love the books that much more. I also didn't like that literally everyone in the school came out at the end. I'm sorry but there's no way everyone in the Catholic school in a Southern community are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. It was like they were just swapping relationships or something.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a fun contemporary young adult novel full of the trials and joys of being a high school senior figuring out yourself and your place in your community and the world at large. While I wouldn’t consider the novel being solely about being queer or coming out, queer themes and characters are present throughout the book, and their presence made I Kissed Shara Wheeler stand out from similar YA novels. Had I Kissed Shara Wheeler been out when I was a teenager, I think it would have been a really important book for me to read.

This book is fun and unpredictable, the reasons I enjoyed it!

This book is one of my most anticipated reads of 2022 because, Casey McQuiston. That name just gives us all chills because we love the author so much, and because Red, White, and Royal Blue is ICONIC and I adore that book!

I was so excited when i heard she was releasing a new YA book and also, that cover?!?!? Gorgeous!!

The premise seemed like a super fun read with a wild goose chase, finding new friends in unexpected places, and finding love where you least expected to find it in a place you didn't think you liked.

This book was one big question mark for me and I was just along for the ride of the lives of these high school students, dealing with society, school, religion, and their identities. I love the different representations in this book, and the different relationships that are shown and formed.

You already know that a book by Casey McQuiston will be enjoyable and even though this book is way different from her other two, it shows how McQuiston can keep her audience, while also giving them something new! And considering I'm not the biggest YA fan, this one was still a fun book for me to enjoy!💕

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the earc in return for an honest review.

It's a queer masterpiece. You get it all - a John Green inspired scavenger hunt, so many coming of age stories, and a rom-com subplot to end all rom-coms. I loved Chloe's quest for valedictorian and how it's so quickly derailed by her hunt for answers. The cast of characters is vibrant and diverse, each contributing their own personalities and perspectives to the story. There are just so many things going on in this book that it could be easy to lose a character like Georgia (for example), but Casey McQuiston does an excellent job of weaving each character into the story at critical junctions. And Shara Wheeler, OH SHARA WHEELER... She's no manic pixie dream girl. I don't want to spoil anything, but this book is a can't miss, quintessential book for the LGBTQIA+ community.

*Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

I’m officially giving up on this author. I’ve read all their books now and just don’t like any of them. I completely skimmed the last 10% because I just couldn’t do it anymore. The characters all sucked which is how I feel about all their books I don’t understand why people want to read about all these people who suck so immensely. I also didn’t buy any of these relationships. No one felt like they actually liked each other at all. I don’t know I’m sure this book will do well it just didn’t work for me at all. I actually did like the mystery that started in this book then abruptly ended at like 60% in. After that it was downhill for me.