So, I definitely feel too old to admit that this type of gossipy young adult fiction is a definite guilty pleasure of mine, but I'm saying it regardless. I definitely enjoyed KISS AND BLOG and I would recommend it to anyone who secretly stashes away smutty gossip magazines -- because it's just THAT fun!
Backing up a little bit, KISS AND BLOG is about two best friends who have decided that they are absolutely tired of being social nobodies at their high school. Thus, they spend their summer researching fashion tips, cheer-leading moves, and general personality characteristics that lend themselves to easy teenage popularity. After a new wardrobe, new hair colors, and countless hours of emulating moves from higher places on the social ladder, Sloane and Winter know they are ready for the A-list crowd at school...
... Except, things don't quite work out like the girls planned. While Sloane has the hair flipping, eye batting, and girly giggling down to a science, Winter feels awkward and uncomfortable around the popular kids, still finding cheer-leading and teeny-bop fashion to be laughable, at best. Sloane is part of the A-list crowd right away, but Winter just doesn't mesh with the crowd, finding herself to be the laughing stock of the cool kids once again. And now, Sloane is mocking her too, it seems.
Hurt and angry from the blatant betrayal by her former best friend, Winter takes out her aggressions through her new blog, a quirky series of entries by a character, Eleanor Rigsby, that semi-anonymously spill each and every one of Sloane's dirty little secrets, accumulated after years of friendship. Winter doesn't expect that anyone will really see her rantings, but it ends up being a fun way to release her hostilities, even if it ends up being a secret kind of revenge.
Soon, though, the secret gets out, and everyone knows about Eleanor Rigsby and her hilarious reports of Princess Pink and her diva squad. But, is Winter really as anonymous as she thinks? And, is she willing to let her bitterness over a failed friendship overshadow a possibility for a chance at love?
Sure, KISS AND BLOG is a definite guilty pleasure read, but it is definitely fun and compulsively readable -- easily read in a single sitting, even. I was a little worried when things started gearing up for a cliche love triangle, but the situation was quickly diffused. Yay!
And yeah, the characters were catty and bitchy and ridiculously mean, but that was part of the fun. Think "MEAN GIRLS" -- except, throw in a blog, a hippie mother, a semi-celebrity father, and a couple of hipster teenage boys on the side.
It's not War and Peace, but nobody picks up a book like this expecting a classic. So, if you want a fun, quick teenage read, give KISS AND BLOG a chance. Maybe it will be your next guilty pleasure, too!