Kissing in Americaby Margo Rabb
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: May 26th 2015
Rate: Enjoyed it (3,5 stars)
Synopsis:
I loved romances because when you opened the first page, you knew the story would end well. Your heart wouldn't be broken. I loved that security, that guaranteed love.
In real life, you never knew the ending. I hated that.
Sixteen-year-old Eva has never been in love. But when she meets Will, everything changes. With him, her grief over her father's death fades, and she can escape from her difficult relationship with her mother. Then, without any warning, Will picks up and moves to California. So Eva—with the help of her best friend, Annie—concocts a plan to travel across the country to see him again. As they leave New York City for the first time and road-trip across America, they encounter cowboys, kudzu, and tiny towns without stoplights. Along the way, Eva and Annie learn the truth about love and all its complexities.
In real life, you never knew the ending. I hated that.
Sixteen-year-old Eva has never been in love. But when she meets Will, everything changes. With him, her grief over her father's death fades, and she can escape from her difficult relationship with her mother. Then, without any warning, Will picks up and moves to California. So Eva—with the help of her best friend, Annie—concocts a plan to travel across the country to see him again. As they leave New York City for the first time and road-trip across America, they encounter cowboys, kudzu, and tiny towns without stoplights. Along the way, Eva and Annie learn the truth about love and all its complexities.
Kissing in America is truly a heart-breaking story that will inspire you with every page and make you read a truly amazing teenage experience around America through Eva's point of view.
Let's start this review saying that the previous title Margo's book had, Cures for Heartbreak, was more accurate than the actual one. Kissing in America is not your book if you're looking for a summer romance with butterflies and rainbows and a very happily ever after. Kissing in America is Evie's story about believing in love even after she has all the reasons to just give up, to trying to survive to the loss of her father and being the only romantic person left in her house.
What I liked about the story was Annie. She's what I like to call a true teenager. She has problems, she falls in love, does impulsive things, talks and dreams about boys, has it's ups and downs with her mother... Like a said, a true teenager. Plus, she has a literary side that I truly loved. Her love for literature made me put post-its all over my ARC to remember where they were.
The story starts a bit slow to my liking, but we had to understand Annie's surroundings, her situation and what Will meant to her. So I could pass it up. There are some way funny moments that made me laugh out loud, but the author had the ability to also combine heart-breaking and romantic moments.
See an example:
I wanted to text my mom: I would shoot myself, but instead I'll go poison myself because Janet would find that a nice sanitary way to die.
"Let's just say it doesn't look like the most comfortable thing on the planet. Their penises are four feet long."
"I'm not planning on having sex with an elephant."
"The story was a fantasy, but the feelings were real, I thought as we got back on the bus. That yearning, the sparks, the enormity of love - I felt those exact things with Will."
"Grief isn't like a map you can follow. It's not a simple route with a destination. Sometimes you loop back and find yourself in the exact same place you left."
Overall, Kissing in America was a good read and it was a different read from all the romance stories I had been reading. Kissing in America was more about healing and discovering that you can survive a break up. That you can learn from your experiences and mistakes and that everything can happen. It was truly an adventure.
Maia Mitchell as Eva
Gregg Sulkin as Will
Ariel Winter as Annie
Winona Ryder as Eva's Mom
Tina Fey as Eva's Aunt
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Margo Rabb's stories have been published in The Atlantic Monthly, Zoetrope: All Story, Seventeen, Best New American Voices, New Stories from the South, New England Review, One Story, and elsewhere, and have been broadcast on National Public Radio. She received grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in The Atlantic Monthly fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. She grew up in Queens, New York, and now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and two children. A complete list of her published work can be found here.
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