Confessions of a Serial Kisser

Confessions of a Serial Kisser by Wendelin Van Draanen
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Number of pages: 304
My copy: hardbound, birthday gift from Aaron

EVANGELINE LOGAN WANTS a kiss. A spectacular, heart-stopping, life changing kiss. Somehow The Crimson Kiss (a romance novel she’s become obsessed with) and Four Steps to Living Your Fantasy (a self-help book she’s reading) have fused in Evangeline’s mind and sent her on a quest for a kiss. But the path to perfection is paved with many bad kisses—the smash mouth, the ear licker, the “misser.” The phrase “I don’t kiss and tell” means nothing to the boys in her school. And worse: someone starts writing her name and number on bathroom walls. And worst of all: the boy she’s just kissed turns out to be her best friend’s new crush. Kissing turns out to be way more complicated than the romance novels would have you believe . . .

* * *

Wendelin Van Draanen is the author of one of my favorite books ever, Flipped. I love Flipped — I have read several times and pushed to several people and even cried while watching the movie. I never really got around to reading the author’s other works, until I got it for a gift. It took me another year to read it (just like my other books in my TBR, heh), and I thought it would be the right book to cleanse my palate over reading something a little bit more serious.

Evangeline Logan is a serial kisser — she knows it, and she justifies this because she wants one thing: a crimson kiss. The kind of kiss she read in the romance novel she found under her mother’s bed, a kiss that will turn her world around. So after a makeover, she goes to school and starts searching for that crimson kiss. How? By kissing boys of course. But it’s not turning out the way she expected it as rumors about her started spreading. As if that’s not enough, her best friend’s too busy and her two-timing dad is making a comeback. And she still hasn’t found her crimson kiss. What’s a serial kisser to do now?

Going into Confessions of a Serial Kisser by Wendelin Van Draanen and expecting it to be like Flipped was kind of a big mistake. I wanted to like this more, but a third into the book I was very annoyed with Evangeline. I’m definitely not the kind of person who would do what she did, but let’s be honest now: who would do such a thing? How could she expect that she’d find that perfect crimson kiss by kissing random boys — by random, I mean strangers too! All because of a romance novel?

Okay, that may be the entire point of the book — that you just can’t find a crimson kiss randomly — but Evangeline not expecting that she’d have a reputation after what she has been doing was just kind of naive. It’s like getting a pair sidi cobra boots: if you keep wearing them long enough, you’ll be known as the person who wears them. Evangeline reminded me a bit of Kelsey in Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters, but I would be a bit more forgiving with Kelsey if she had done what Evangeline did because she’s still pretty young. I had to double check what year Evangeline was already in (junior to senior? There was a mention of emancipation at some point in the book) because I thought her attitude was kind of too young for her age.

The chapters in this book are pretty short and they kind of remind me of my stories back in high school. It didn’t have the same fluid story like Flipped, and there were some plot points that felt a little too stretched out or a little too contrived. The guitar thing for example — where did that come from? Sure, she likes music, but the guitar thing just came out of the blue for me. Evangeline’s issues could have had more depth in it especially since I’m sure there are kids who are in the same situations, but I’m afraid it veered towards the shallow end with how Evangeline reacted with everything. And that boy who really liked her all along? I saw that coming a mile away.

That being said, though, there’s an overall lesson in the book that wasn’t that bad, really. The book touched a bit on communication and forgiveness, which was pretty nicely done in the end. Evangeline’s penance was hard enough, although I wish she wasn’t such a whiny girl about it. How her kissing issues connect with her home issues was also explained, and at least that gives an overall hopeful resolution for them. It’s just sad that by the time those things came, I didn’t care about any of them anymore.

Confessions of a Serial Kisser could have had a good story going for it, but in the end I was just pretty annoyed with the main character and there was too much going on that I was just relieved that it was over when it was over. It was pretty fun (and I use the term lightly) sometimes, but if you’re expecting something like Flipped… well, better lower your expectations.

Rating: [rating=2]

Other reviews:
Persnickety Snark
Becky’s Book Reviews