Publisher: Walker
Pages: 400pgs
The Story
Piper, Cassidy, Mei, and Izzy have been best friends their whole lives. And they've always agreed on one goal: to get out of tiny Paris, Texas, and see the world. The school's foreign exchange program seems like the perfect escape: Piper will go to the original Paris; Mei will go to China; Cassidy will go to Australia; and Izzy, unable to afford the program, will stay at home. To add spice to their semester away, and to stay connected to their best friends, the girls start The International Kissing Club, a Facebook page where they can anonymously update one another and brag about all the amazing guys they're meeting. After all, these girls are traveling abroad: amazing guys abound at every turn! But sometimes fun, flirty vacation flings turn into more serious romances, and sometimes you don't return from abroad the same person you were. Will the girls' relationships-and their friendships-be able to survive?
The Review
A big thanks to Bloomsbury Australia for sending me a review copy of this book!
A big thanks to Bloomsbury Australia for sending me a review copy of this book!
Reminding me of the likes of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and Anna and the French Kiss, Ivy Adams's - a pseudonym for three different female authors - THE INTERNATIONAL KISSING CLUB is the kind of read you're either going to really love or really hate. Unfortunately for this light and girly read I was the reader who just couldn't get into this book no matter how hard I tried to. While I do appreciate the different character perspectives offered by these three different authors, but the book itself just wasn't something I would normally read nor usually enjoy as much my other preferred contemporary YA books. But I would like to thank the publisher for sending me a review copy of the book anyway because I liked reading something a little out of my own comfort zone.
Personally this book had a lot of problems. At with me. For the majority of the book I quite often found the characters were a little too cliche for my own liking (especially with the romance parts) and most of them I just couldn't relate to . . . to put it simply for you. It also didn't help that the book was really slowly paced, which dragged down the entire storyline as sad as it is. Though, what I did enjoy and eventually came to like, was one of the girl's perspectives - that being Mei's perspective, who'd offered some funny moments here and there. But other than that, this book just wasn't for me.
Overall, while this book didn't do much for me but for a light, fluffy and a very girly read, I think THE INTERNATIONAL KISSING CLUB would appeal to those readers of a younger audience, especially for those who enjoy reading about light romances, travelling, and the friendships we cannot ever forget in our lives.
The Rating
1/5 stars
