Review: Kiss Collector by Wendy Higgins

Kiss Collector by Wendy Higgins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this eARC novel from Edelweiss. This is my honest review.
Release Date: December 18, 2018

Zae has a great life. She lives with her mom, dad and younger brother in the house she's been in her whole life. She has a great boyfriend. She does cheerleading at school and has 3 amazing best friends.

But things started to go downhill fast around spring break Junior Year. First she caught her boyfriend cheating on her at a party. Then she finds out her parents are splitting up due to cheating.

Now, Zae doesn't believe in love. She comes up with a plan to have fun and basically "act like a guy" by getting as many kisses as she can during spring break. Guys do it all of the time, why can't Zae and her 3 best friends?

At first it's fun, but after awhile, past kisses come back to talk to Zae, crushes are off the table and jealously runs among the friends, and feelings are hurt in the end. Zae realizes that her good idea of fun may have terrible reprecussions. And mix that with the secrets she finds out about her parents, Zae is realizing that love is a very complicated thing.

I love Wendy Higgins, and I am not surprised that I adored this book of hers as well! Not only was this a good YA book, there were so many issues that readers can relate to. It is so real and there are so many messages that are given in this book.

This book is about love. It starts off with love and heartbreak, and the reader essentially goes through every stage of love you can think of: child's love for parents, husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, best friends, crushes, endearment, heartbreak, and pinning/wanting something to be more.

I loved the aspect with the poetry from English class. To know that someone is watching you, paying attention to you, attracted to you but it being a secret is a complicated mystery. On the one hand, you really want to know who it is, but on the other hand, you are unsure if you want to know because you may not like that person as much as you did when it was a mystery.

What Zae and her friends did - the kiss list - is something I would never do, let alone think about doing. I can see how the girls wanted to give the guys a taste of their own medicine, sure. But after reading about their drama for the rest of their junior year makes me happy that I didn't have to deal with that mess. I was simply at school to go to class, do homework, and then read my books. Because I know that high school is really similar to this novel, so I was one of the lucky ones I feel like :)

And I felt so much for Zae and her brother when they were going through their parents separation. I feel like they should have included her brother in all of the information about why they were separated because I think an honesty policy needs to be used in this situation, but I may be alone in this thoughht process.

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the ending! It made me so happy to see Zae figure out her life and to realize that love is ever changing. She grew so much during this novel and showed the reader that you can experience so much when the opportunity rises. Doors open all of the time, you just have to take a chance to try something new.

This book was so great, and I know there will be many happy readers when this is released in December! There is so much to learn from this novel and to realize that not everything is as it seems. I'm so glad I got a chance to read this early! :)

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