Kiss Crush Collide by Christina Meredith Review

Title: Kiss Crush Collide

Author: Christina Meredith

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Publication date: 27^th December 2011

My rating: 2 stars

What first caught my attention about Kiss Crush Collide, was the edgy enigmatic blurb and the enticing cover. Once I started this book however I soon realised that this maybe the only real positive about it, as the story was a huge disappointment.

Leah is the youngest of the Johnson sisters, being the youngest can be a pain for Leah especially as she has two successful well established sisters already; Yorke and Freddie. Of course Leah is expected to follow in the footsteps of her sisters; become valedictorian (she has a tough task here as the school geek Valerie is definitely the one she has to beat), go prom with boyfriend Shane captain of the football team and become home coming queen. She can expect no less otherwise she’ll have to deal with the wrath of her mother.

But everything changes when Leah meets Porter/Duffy, it’s different when she’s around him, he sets her pulse racing and she gets a thrill sneaking out to see him. The dilemma Leah faces is she really wants to be with him, but each time she wants to meet him she has to do it on the sly, she can’t tell her sisters as they would go blabbing to their mother, who would totally disapprove. In her mother’s eyes Duffy is seen as “hired help”, so definitely not good enough for Leah. So what’s a girl like Leah to do? should she follow her heart and be with Duffy and end her relationship with Shane? Or should she follow the path that’s already being planned by her mother?

The main reason for giving this book two stars was because of the characters; they were hugely frustrating. Firstly Shane, I didn’t blame Leah in the slightest for wanting to be with Duffy instead of Shane. Shane was a complete jerk. I didn’t understand how her mum thought she should be with him, he was always checking out her sisters in front of her and only had one thing on his mind. This quote pretty much sums up everything he had going.

"And there’s nothing wrong with Shane. He’s nice
he’s fit. He’s super cute. He smells good. Occasionally
he’s funny. I’ve got it good. I get that"

Leah’s mum was a right old snobby control freak, always trying to keep her daughters in check, telling them what was and wasn’t acceptable for them. But the character who annoyed me the most was Yorke; she was flaky, obnoxious and self centred. Always looking her nose down at everyone, thinking she was perfect when she wasn’t, she made my blood boil every time she turned up (let me tell you she popped up so many times, by the end of this book, I wanted to throttle her)

I really wanted to enjoy this book; it was one of my highly anticipated books of the year. But I found the story dragged for most of the book; Leah was either sneaking off spending time with Duffy or pondering over what she should do. I think this could have been resolved a lot quicker. It was also full of really grating and shallow characters; the only intelligent character in the book was Valerie! I’m sorry to say this book wasn’t for me, hopefully others will enjoy it a lot more than I did.