SYNOPSIS: When Anna sets out on a post high school road trip toward an unknown destination with best friend Kat, she thinks she’s prepared for everything. Clipboard in hand, she checks off her lists: Set up tent. Study maps. Avoid bears. Feelings are not on any list. For the past year – ever since her mother’s sudden death – Anna has shut down her emotions and shut out the people who love her most.

Kat is a different story. Clutching a well-worn copy of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, she radiates enthusiasm. Maybe, she thinks, this road trip will shake Anna back to life. Zigzaging across the Northwest, the girls encounter fellow travelers of all kinds. But throughout their journey, one question haunts Anna. It begins like a gentle rain and then becomes a raging storm: What place does Kat have in my life? Are we good friends? Or something more. (via Amazon)

BRIAN’S REVIEW: I’ve had my Kindle for almost a year now, and while I like some elements about it – the portability, the lightness — I still prefer to read books in physical form. There’s just something more romantic about the tangible books. But there is one more thing I’ve come to like about the Kindle – storing multiple books at once! I took a physical book with me on a trip to Washington DC, and about halfway through the loooooong flight back, I had unexpectedly sped all the way through it! I had nothing to read, except for the Southwest in-flight magazine. But then I remembered I had my Kindle, so I checked to see if I had any books on there I for some reason or another had neglected to read, and I found one, which I purchased for $1.99 on a whim last spring, a coming of age story about two young girls on a road trip who may or may not be in love with each. The book was Kiss the Morning Star, and I decided to give the first chapter a try. I’m so glad I did. This was a beautiful and moving novel that presents one of the most well-realized gay relationships I’ve found captured with the written word.

The books is told from the perspective of Anna, who takes her best friend Kat on a road trip in which there is not necessarily a destination in mind, but there’s a hope for a cathartic, revealing journey that will bring out the truth in both characters. Anna is broken over her mother’s death and just wants an escape. Her friend Kat, much more open and spontaneous than Anna, proves to be the perfect passenger for her trip. The book is broken into eighteen chapters, with each chapter opening with reflections on the work of Jack Kerouac, an author whose books The Dharma Burns she adores and takes with her. It’s an episodic novel for sure, with Anna and Kat camping, avoiding bears, getting hit on left and right from boys, and taking hold of the small, silent moments to realize their own love for each other. The intimate scenes between Kat and Anna are perfectly realized, with a genuine sweetness radiating throughout all of author Hoole’s prose.

Kiss the Morning Star is a beautiful story worth checking out. Released just a few months ago, it’s an essential story for those like me who seek far and wide for well written YA contemporary stories about gay characters. I’ve fallen in love with David Levithan’s work recently because he brings to life gay characters in his YA books so damn well, and I have a new author to add to my list of ones to watch – Elissa Janine Hoole. I adored this book!

Book Review: Kiss the Morning Star