Kissing in America Audiobook Review

In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels—118 of them, to be exact—to dull the pain of her loss that’s still so present. Her romantic fantasies become a reality when she meets Will, who seems to truly understand Eva’s grief. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head-over-heels for him, he picks up and moves to California without any warning. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness—and, perhaps, her shot at real love—Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan to travel to the west coast to see Will again. As they road trip across America, Eva and Annie confront the complex truth about love.

In this honest and emotional journey that National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr calls “gorgeous, funny, and joyous,” readers will experience the highs of infatuation and the lows of heartache as Eva contends with love in all of its forms.

Hello Loves!

Happy Thursday! Today’s book review is on an audio book I listened to a little bit ago. It was a prefect easy-listen for me! Check below for the rest of my thoughts on this great read!

Also, if you’re sort on time, then check out my Need to Know section for a quick summary of my review!

Ownership: Borrowed from library via Overdrive 
Genre: YA contemporary  
Publisher:  Harper
Published: 2015
Pages: 9 hrs. & 19 mins. / 400 pages
Price: $21.95 (audible) / $9.99 (paperback)
Place: Amazon, Audible, B & N, Book Depository, GoodReads, IndieBound

My Rating:

Kissing in America  by Margo Rabb follows sixteen-year-old Eva as she deals with the loss of her father who died two years prior. Since his death Eva has found comfort in her best friend Annie & her love of romance novels. She’s read over a 100 of them. Then she meets popular boy Will and Eva starts to fall for him. Will has somehow helped bring Eva out of her sadness over her father’s death, but just as they start to build something, Will ends up moving to California. Unwilling to give up the one person who’s been able to pull her out of her grief, Eva comes up with a plan to travel across the country to see him–roping her best friend Annie into the plot. As both Eva and Annie embark on the cross-country road trip, both girls learn about love.

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Let’s just start this review off by saying how I loved that Eva read romance novels. Whenever this came up within the story, I smiled so hard! I’ve been reading romance novels since I was about 16 years old. Before I used to never really talk about my love of romance books because I think the genre as a whole has some kind of stigma with it. But now I’m all about professing my love of the genre. When I moved to Boston I grew a lot as a person and quickly ended up not caring that I loved this genre so much. So now I shell out recommendation whenever I can. Yay romance books! Okay, okay, back to the review now lol!

Eva was a great main character. She had her flaws that really lent themselves to what I thought this story was trying to tell. She grew so much throughout this novel when it came to relationships–not just about love, but friendship and family. I really enjoyed seeing her make this growth as she drove across the country to meet up with Will. I have to admit that I wasn’t that big of a fan of hers in the beginning, but I could understand how she got swept away by a crush and then by first love. Still I’m happy that her character went through things that made her really grow towards the end. I think she ended up realizing a lot about relationships and who really is important in your life. She was definitely an MC that I related to and I love when I can related to the MC in an novel.

Rabb does a great job of creating secondary characters. Annie was such a great best friend! I love how she supported Eva on this trip! I also enjoyed how she grew some too within the novel and that we as readers got to see this in addition to Eva’s story. Another great secondary character that I loved was Jannet–Eva’s aunt. I think she made a perfect host for the girls on their trip and I enjoyed seeing how they all interacted with each other. Jannet was funny, but also uniquely her. LuLu was also a fantastic character! I liked how Eva was able to reach out to her when she struggled to talk/relate with or understand her mom. Since LuLu was both her mom’s friend and a psychologist, I felt like her character added a lot to the story & Eva’s growth as a character. Lastly, Eva’s mom. I did have some qualms about her as a character in the beginning, but by the end I really appreciated her as a character.

If you haven’t caught on now, what I loved a lot about this book was the portrayal of female relationships. There are so many great instances of female friendships & relationships between aunts, female adults and mothers within this book! I absolutely love the direct Rabb took with this story. Seeing how Eva interacted with all these characters and grew within these relationships really hit home for me. I did end up shedding some tears by the end. I felt like each character was important within this story. It might not seem so at first since a lot of the beginning of the story focuses on Eva and Will, but by the end of the book you’ll understand what I mean.

Which brings me to Eva and Will. To be honest I wasn’t really that into their relationship. It was kind of the slow part of the novel for me. I really liked when Eva & Annie first begin their road trip & whenever Eva was interacting with one of the other female characters. Will & Eva’s relationship was just a little ugh for me. It wasn’t really that important to me. Instead, I focused on Eva as a character & her growth with the people around her.

Overall, I really, really loved this one! It was an easy listen/read. I listened to it as I commuted to work and back home or whenever I went walking somewhere. The story really flew by and I was riveted to my audiobook! I even listened to it a little bit while I worked trying to delay when I had to take out my headphones! So I very much recommend this book! If you’re looking for a great contemporary YA then pick this one up! It has just the right amount of emotion & adventure & coming of age to make it a 5 star book for me 🙂

• Kissing in America by Margo Rabb follows sixteen-year-old Eva as she deals with the loss of her father who died two years prior. Then she meets popular boy Will and Eva starts to fall for him. But when Will moves to California, Eva decides to head across the country to hold on to what they’ve started. Along the way Eva (& her BF Annie) learns about the truth of love & relationships.
• Eva was a great main character. She had her flaws that really lent themselves to what I thought this story was trying to tell. She grew so much throughout this novel when it came to relationships–not just about love, but friendship and family.
• Rabb does a great job of creating secondary characters.
• What I loved a lot about this book was the portrayal of female relationships. There are so many great instances of female friendships & relationships between aunts, female adults and mothers within this book! I absolutely love the direct Rabb took with this story.
• Will & Eva’s relationship was just a little ugh for me. It wasn’t really that important to me. Instead, I focused on Eva as a character & her growth with the people around her.
• 5 STARS!!! Overall, I really, really loved this one! It was an easy listen/read. The story really flew by and I was riveted to my audiobook! So I very much recommend this book! If you’re looking for a great contemporary YA then pick this one up!

Quotes

And it amazed me how even grown ups seemed so confused by love.

Thanks for stopping by! Let me know if you’ve read this book and if so what are your thoughts Eva & the relationships throughout the book? 

Do you have a favorite audiobook? Let me know in the comments below! 

As always, Happy Reading!

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