Kiss Me Again

January 1, 2013

Gr 8-10-As this sequel to If We Kiss (HarperCollins, 2005) opens, Charlie and Kevin have shared a romantic kiss after the wedding of their parents. Charlie is a realistic 14-year-old, vacillating between maturity and childishness with ease and believability. Her awkwardness and growing pains in dealing with friendships, a re-formed family, and romantic relationships provide sufficient tension and interest. Kevin can seem too smooth and mature to be a high school freshman, but the flirting and friendship between the stepsiblings is generally believable. Lots of humor and the realistic portrayal of family interactions help overcome slight flaws in secondary character development and occasional inadequately explained references to situations from the previous title. Although the ending feels somewhat rushed, there is a sense of closure that still leaves open the possibility of a follow-up novel. A teen-friendly romance without sexual references.-Natasha Forrester, Multnomah County Library, OR

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2012
Middle-class girls in early adolescence will love this book--as will their mothers. Ninth-grader Charlie Collins has lived with her mother, a divorced Harvard professor, for many years. Now Mom's new husband, Joe, has moved into the spacious house, along with his sweet 9-year-old daughter, Samantha, and his notoriously flirtatious ninth-grade son, Kevin. From the first page, readers are sucked into a story both angst-y and funny, as Charlie copes with a mutual crush on Kevin; an increasingly tenuous relationship with her best friend, Tess; her first paying job; and other trials and triumphs of growing up. The theme of adjustment to stepfamilies is integrated into every facet of the story, including homework: "There was no way I could settle down enough to read about Hamlet's scheming stepfather and how awkward it was for Hamlet to deal with a blended family. Uh, no." Charlie tells her story in the past tense, but the vivid, awkward conversations and Charlie's constant editorializing--both wittily humorous and earnestly serious--make it clear that the events are in the recent past and that Charlie's tale will continue to unfold. Vail shows emotional development in the characters introduced in If We Kiss (2005) and liberally sprinkles their lives with such contemporary activities as texting, while sheltering them in a world where French-kissing and finger-lacing are their limits of sexual intimacy. An enjoyable romance that eschews smutty for sweet. (Fiction. 12-16)

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January 1, 2013
Grades 7-10 Now living with the first boy she ever kissed, nearly 15-year-old Charlie is very confused about their relationship, especially since the reason they reside in the same house is that their parents have married each other, and yet they (as in Charlie and Kevin) still can't stop smooching. Confusion is actually an understatement as the complications that commenced in the lighthearted If We Kiss (2005) increase in their teenaged complexity as friendships are tested, rumors are spread, and blended families learn how to come together. Vail presents it all through Charlie's humorous, obsessive, and believable first-person voice, and while there are most certainly some innuendos and multiple eww-they're-like-stepsiblings moments throughout, between all the texting, sneaking, and snogging, there's nothing too far beyond what previous generations may have imagined between Greg and Marcia Brady. Kevin has gained some dimension since the previous volume and among all the hormones going amok there is an entertaining and relatable romp about figuring out first love.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2013
In this frothy sequel to [cf2]If We Kiss[cf1], the boy who gave Charlie her first real kiss has become her stepbrother, and she has to share living space and a family with him while the two of them, possibly, rekindle their romance. Charlie's predicaments and the sitcom-like supporting characters lack depth, but she's still a likable narrator.

(Copyright 2013 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)