Genre: YA Contemporary
Published: June 17, 2014 by HarperTeen
Length: 352 pages
Source: HarperTeen (ARC)
“When a death threat arrives with tee
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.“
I have mixed feelings for this book. Based on the summary, I guess this book is about how Claire, a high school senior, learns from her mistakes and changes as a person. After reading this book, I don’t think Claire learned from her past mistakes and grew as a person. The title says it all. The narration alternates from present and past, with the past containing her first 17 kisses (I think kiss #15-17 are present) which I liked because it made it easier for me to compare how Claire was in the past with the Claire during the present (which was not much of a difference). She did changed just a teeny bit though. This book has the cliques, mean popular girls, etc. which I kind of did not like but I do understand why the author incorporated it because some people are high school are actually like that.
What I sort of liked from this book is the friendship. No matter how many times Claire and Megan (I guess Megan is like the leader of the popular girls clique) fight over something (especially guys) they realize that their friendship is more valuable than anything. I also like how they are not using each other. They have a connection and have those deep talks about family and their future. I also like how the characters’ parents and siblings are involved. The parents didn’t take a random vacation or anything like that just so the main character could do whatever the hell she/he wants.
What I did not like was the pacing of the book. I just found it slow which made me bored at times. I also did not like some of the characters, but it’s okay because I wasn’t supposed to like them. That’s how they are and I’m almost certain the author made their personalities annoying on purpose. Just remember, if you are reading this book, these girls are boy crazies to the max!
Overall this book was okay. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t fantastic either. I still recommend it but it I wouldn’t put it on the top of my tbr.
