Book Review: Who I Kissed by Janet Gurtler

• Review: Who I Kissed
• Series: –
• Author: Janet Gurtler
• No of Pages: 320
• Expected Release Date: October 1st 2012 by Sourcebooks Fire

Synopsis:

She never thought a kiss could kill…

Samantha didn’t mean to hurt anyone. She was just trying to fit in…and she wanted to make Zee a little jealous after he completely ditched her for a prettier girl. So she kissed Alex. And then he died—right in her arms.

Was she really the only person in the entire school who didn’t know about his peanut allergy? Or that eating a peanut butter sandwich and then kissing him would be deadly? Overnight Sam turns into the school pariah and a media sensation explodes. Consumed with guilt, abandoned by her friends, and in jeopardy of losing her swimming scholarship, she’ll have to find a way to forgive herself before anyone else will.

My thoughts:

This book reminded me a lot of Skinny. Some of the issues were psychological, some were pressure from her peers. Well, a LOT of pressure from her peers but overall the book was great. The plot was really interesting and it didn’t take me any time to read at all. Actually I didn’t want to stop reading at my normal “bed time” and thought about just reading throughout the night!!

The main character Samantha is seriously put through the wringer in this and I was cheering for her the whole way. She makes her own set of mistakes, some causing the “incident” other mistakes were caused by the incident but she tries, she just doesn’t know what to do with her life. The entire story is about her pushing through but it’s the few and I do mean few friends, that she has that help her to keep her head held high.

Sam is fantastic but my favorite character is her Aunt Allie. It’s funny when you believe in the paranormal and nobody around you does but she doesn’t even care, she plows through life with love and kindness for everyone and I really do think she is fabulous! Totally quirky and fun and her pup Frederick is another of my favorites! But I do love dogs. Can a dog be a favorite character? Apparently so!

Some of the other characters are a bit more confusing. I understood Sam, her dad and her Aunt straight away but was left trying to figure out Zee and a few others. With everything that has happened you just don’t know if they are out to hurt Sam more. There are some characters that I downright disliked from the beginning to the end but you really always need someone like that.

Overall, scary but good plot! The book moved with a finesse that you don’t even notice until you look up and realize you’ve been reading for an hour and actually do have a life that isn’t in this book! Janet Gurtler did a great job! Only downside is that, even though Sam goes through so much, I wish there were more character arcs, especially for characters like Casper, but in the end the book held its own without them.

Thank you to Southern Book Bloggers for sending me this Arc. In no way was I paid for this review.

And a few more young adult that are fun to read!

Have any favorite young adult reads? Please share!

Tags: Book review, Janet Gurtler, Who I kissed