Mundie Moms

Monday, January 9, 2012

Book Review/Blog Tour: The Intentional Kissing Club by Ivy Adams



Published by: Bloomsbury Teens
Released on: January 3rd, 2012
Source: ARC from the author to review
3 stars: It's A Good Read

Piper, Cassidy, Mei, and Izzy have been best friends their whole lives. And they've always agreed on one goal: to get out of tiny Paris, Texas, and see the world. The school's foreign exchange program seems like the perfect escape: Piper will go to the original Paris; Mei will go to China; Cassidy will go to Australia; and Izzy, unable to afford the program, will stay at home. To add spice to their semester away, and to stay connected to their best friends, the girls start The International Kissing Club, a Facebook page where they can anonymously update one another and brag about all the amazing guys they're meeting. After all, these girls are traveling abroad: amazing guys abound at every turn! But sometimes fun, flirty vacation flings turn into more serious romances, and sometimes you don't return from abroad the same person you were. Will the girls' relationships-and their friendships-be able to survive? -quoted from Goodreads

Friendship, trust, falling in love and a little bit of self discovery are just a few of the things you'll discovery while reading the story of Cassidy, Izzy, Piper and Mei, four friends who are desperate for an escape from their small TX town. The International Kissing Club is a facebook group they started to track the international kisses they receive as three of the friends venture to China, France and Australia, while one of them stays behind in Paris, TX for 10 weeks. During the course of this time the girls learn a few things about love, romance, heartbreak, being a true friend and falling in love.

I liked that through out the course of the story each of the girls grow in a different way. Mei, Cassidy, Izzy and Piper all have different ambitions and goals. They all have their reasons for wanting to get out of their small TX town, and away from their dramatic high school issues. Which can I just add, I'm so glad my HS days are behind me. Honestly the drama that goes on in this story started getting on my nerves a little bit. I know these years are tough, but the things kept happening at the girl's expensive were making me mad. I got really irritated that no one would really stand up and do or say anything about it except for one of the girls. I grew really frustrated with Piper and her in-ability to just stand up for herself. I wanted to help her tell off the queen "you know what". I loved Cassidy, because she didn't have any problems standing up for her friends. With Izzy despite doing something one of her friends deems uncool, I loved that she did what she felt was right and I adored Mei for realizing friends are like family.

I enjoyed getting to know the four friends from Paris, TX. It was great seeing how they each grew through the story, even though at times I cringed at some of the things they did. Unfortunately the public face book page where they track their international kisses was cringe worthy moment for me. I personally had a hard time buying into doing something like this, especially since they not only have an arch enemy who would do anything she can to make the girls look bad, but they could have made their page/group private for just the four of them to see. Instead the girls gain an internationally following, and sadly what started out as a fun idea for these four close friends ends up back firing a little bit for two of them.

I liked how well the different girls all meshed together and their various backgrounds. I also liked reading about some their experiences during their travels. I felt like Ivy Adams nailed that small TX town setting perfectly! I couldn't help but laugh at the Dairy Queen comment that's made in the book. What TX town doesn't have one of those. haha In the end this wasn't a book I enjoyed as much as I wanted to, but I think it's one teen readers will. There is some mild language, some sensual scenes, and mentions of underage drinking and sex.


Be sure to find out more about the girls here and read an excerpt here.

Ivy Adams is going on tour! Find out where HERE


Mundane Monday #118

Happy Mundane Monday!! Enjoy another little snippet from the addicting scene Cassie posted yesterday of Jace's point of view for Jace & Clary's first kiss, aka the greenhouse scene. You can read the entire scene here.


She looks at him, curiously, and he cannot help the feeling that those green eyes can see through him. “Have you and Isabelle ever dated?” she asks.
His heart is still pounding. He doesn’t quite understand the question. “Isabelle?” he echoes. Isabelle? What did Isabelle have to do with anything?“Simon was wondering,” she says, and he hates the way she says Simon’s name. He has never felt anything like this before: anything that unnerved him like she does. He remembers coming to her in that alleyway behind the coffee shop, the way he had wanted to draw her outside, away from the dark-haired boy she was always with, into his world of shadows. He had felt even then that she belonged where he did, not to the mundane world where people weren’t real, where they passed just beyond his vision like puppets on a stage. But this girl, with her green eyes that pinned him like a butterfly, she was real. Like a voice heard in a dream, that you know comes from the waking world, she was real, piercing the distance he has set so carefully about himself like armor.

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