Mundie Moms

Friday, May 16, 2014

17 First Kisses by Rachel Allen, Book Review



By: Rachel Allen
Published by: Harper Teen
To Be Released on: 6/17/14
Source: arc from publisher to review
Rating: 2 stars- It Was An Okay Read
Pre-Order it from: Amazon
Add it to Goodreads

No matter how many boys Claire kisses, she can’t seem to find a decent boyfriend. Someone who wouldn’t rather date her gorgeous best friend, Megan. Someone who won’t freak out when he learns about the tragedy her family still hasn’t recovered from. Someone whose kisses can carry her away from her backwoods town for one fleeting moment.

Until Claire meets Luke.

But Megan is falling for Luke, too, and if there’s one thing Claire knows for sure, it’s that Megan’s pretty much irresistible.

With true love and best friendship on the line, Claire suddenly has everything to lose. And what she learns—about her crush, her friends, and most of all herself—makes the choices even harder.

In her moving debut, Rachael Allen brilliantly captures the complexities of friendship, the struggles of self-discovery, and the difficulties of trying to find love in high school.


17 First Kisses is a book that tackles friendship, drama, mean girls, teen age relationships, drama (way too much of it) girls learning to not let guys treat them like crap, realizing that sometimes no matter how much you like guy, they may not be worth all the trouble, and learning to figure out what a true friendship is about. I'm really torn on my feelings with this book. I liked parts of it, and other parts not so much. I liked that this wasn't a typical YA contemporary romance. Sure, there is a light romantic tone to it, but the book digs deeper into the realities that make up a teenage relationships. The learning to stand up for yourself, what friendship really means, and figuring out how to cope with the fact your best friend and you are falling for the same guy.

When I first started reading this book I liked the relationship Claire had with her best friend Megan. Rachel Allen wrote well distinguished flash back scenes that give a history for Megan and Claire's friendship, how Claire obtained each one of her kisses and more. It's during those flash backs where I first started not liking Megan, like at all. She was so stuck on being the "it" girl, having the cutest guy as her boyfriend, regardless of whether or not Megan liked him or saw him first. Megan always had to one up Claire, and I got frustrated that Claire just went with it, even though she started to see what Megan was like. These two had a friendship I just didn't get. The way Megan started treating Claire made me mad. I was irritated at Claire for making discussions based on what the popular crowd was doing. For her to fit in, she willingly went along with it. There was way too much relationship drama between Claire and Megan, and the boys they equally liked. They stole each other's boyfriends or would take the guy the other thought was cute, fight and then make up. *confused*. The drama to me felt very middle grade and not at all the kind of drama that exists in high school, which is when the story started to turn me off.

What I liked.  I liked that Claire started to learn to stand up for herself when it came to their friendship and with some of the guys who tried to take advantage of situations she found herself in with them. I also liked that both her and Megan were able to realize the mistakes they made, and attempt to salvage their relationship. I liked the Claire's parents were apart of her life. I really liked her dad's caution to her about Luke. I liked that Claire started to see relationships for what they really were, and realized she needed to either get out of them, or fix what she could with them. I liked how Rachel wrote the flash back scenes. I loved Claire and Sam's relationship. I really like the book's cover.

What I didn't like, the word slut. I hate that word. I hate how often this word is misused in our society. I can not stand it when that word is used in a book. It was used one too many times in this book. I had a few issues with the writing. There were times I felt scenes were written great, then the next scene I felt was missing something. I don't even know if that makes sense. There were some characters who were less than stellar in this book. You'll know who they are pretty quickly. Once I felt that the maturity level of the characters didn't feel true to their age, I detached from the story, and became less interested in it. While this is a book that started off good, it sadly ended with me not liking it as much as I had wanted to. It was not a story that I connected way.

*This book has sexual references, underage drinking, and sensual scenes that may not be suitable for younger YA readers.

I hate posting reviews for books I didn't love, but I'm not going to love every book I read. While I didn't enjoy this book as much as a few of my other reviewers friends did, you may find you will enjoy it. 

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