Product Description

Kate was lissa’s best friend. they’ve shared everything for four years. then one night at a drunken party, Kate leaned in to kiss lissa, and lissa kissed her back. And now Kate is pretending lissa doesn’t exist. Confused and alone, lissa’s left questioning everything she thought she knew about herself, and about life. but with the help of a free-spirit new friend, lissa’s beginning to find the strength to realize that sometimes falling in love with the wrong person is the only way to find your footing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #345689 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780142408698
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up-The kisser is best-friend-since-seventh-grade Lissa. The kiss is no peck on the cheek, and therein lies the rub. Since the fateful event, Kate has been cold to her friend. In this first-person narrative, Lissa, hurt and confused, details her present state of inner turmoil, with frequent flashbacks to the girls' blissful (pre-kiss) days. To complicate matters, Lissa and her younger sister are being raised by an uncle (their parents died in a plane crash), and lack the emotional rudder a maternal figure might have provided. At first Lissa misses Kate dearly, but gradually, through personal insights derived from some new and unexpected friendships (and forays into new-age dream therapy), she finds the strength to confront both Kate and her own sexual identity. While the message is sound, the delivery is seriously flawed. The friendship between Lissa and Kate, the linchpin of the story, is unconvincing. The girls are defined from the get-go by their differences in appearance and personality, but Myracle fails to make the case that opposites truly attract. It seems ungenerous that Lissa and Kate are painted as such stark contrasts, with Lissa being the brave one and Kate in denial of her sexuality; they are, after all, only 16, an age when sexual conflict is the norm.
Mary Ann Carcich, Mattituck-Laurel Public Library, Mattituck, NY
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 7-10. "It was one thing for someone else to be gay. It was something else entirely if it was me." Lissa, 16, has been best friends with beautiful Kate for four years, but everything changes when Kate gets drunk at a party, and she and Lissa passionately kiss. Lissa is desperate to talk about it, but Kate wants to pretend that nothing happened. This first novel does a great job of showing the girls' surprise at the situation and the way their emotions swing from attraction to denial. Funny and anguished, Lissa's first-person narrative expresses her hurt, anger, and confusion as she tries to date a guy; searches for an adult to talk to (and for a bra that fits); and downloads depressing statistics from the Net about the high suicide rate among gay teens. There's some contrivance about "lucid dreaming," with heavy metaphors and connections, but most readers will skim that for the lively realistic story about friends and lovers. For another, very different take on the subject, see David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy, reviewed on p.1980. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Myracle’s enchanting first novel will reach teens who are wrestling with identity. . . . [A] gem. -- VOYA

Customer Reviews

DON'T listen to everyone else, just listen to my review!
Kissing Kate was a book I could relate to. In fact, the only reason that I gave it so many stars (2) is due to the fact that I had the same experiences in my own life that the main character is this book has. The problems with this book are from cover to cover. The writing is amateur when it's at its very best. The two girls in the story need much more character development in order for their friendship to be believable and validated, which is probably the books biggest flaw. The author of the story, Lauren Myracle, did not convince me that these two girls were important to each other, although she does make a weak attempt to do just that. I found myself feeling apathetic toward the girls in this story and their inner conflicts. The final disappointment in this book came at the end, where half of my questions were left unanswered. Sometimes things are better left to one's imagination, but not EVERYTHING. Kissing Kate is a depressing book that leaves the reader feeling frusterated. Anyone who wishes to enlighten me with their review of my review may do so. Anyone else who is looking for a great story in this same genre will find one in the pages of Keeping You a Secret by Julie Ann Peters. As for Miss Myracle and her book, she should be thrown in jail for writing it, not paid. Myracle fails, miserably.

unconvinced
While I adore YA novels about queer kids, this one left me a little underwhelmed. I was just never convinced that Lissa and Kate were real people --- the character development was nil. I also didn't believe that they actually felt something for one another --- it was kind of like a romantic comedy with Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, where all of the ingredients for a romantic comedy are there, but there's just no chemistry; it's not convincing. For a really good read, rely on the old classic Annie On My Mind --- a book which I still practically keep under my pillow, and which convinced my mom (!) that maybe, maybe this lesbian thing was OK.

Pleasant Surprise
As an over sixty father of six grown children, I had to be cajoled by my youngest daughter to read Ms Myracle's first novel. For starters the book was not written for my age group, and it was not a subject matter that seemed relevant to me now. But the story-telling was so engaging, the revelation of a young girl's search for self so clear and convincing, and the treatment of the theme so even-handed, I loved the book. Any parent (or grandparent) of adolescents should consider "Kissing Kate" required reading.