17 First Kisses by Rachael Allen (review)

This debut novel follows the fate of whip-smart, athletic Claire as she negotiates friendships with both boys and girls throughout her junior high and high school life. Some of the plot here is familiar: Claire is part of a popular clique, and she has to manage both a jerkish boy and a long-suffering best male friend with an enduring crush on her. What sets this book apart, however, is the way these problems are solved on a human rather than a hyperbolic scale, with grace, tenderness, forgiveness and humor tempering the inevitable angst of a best friend who’s prettier and more popular than you, a seemingly sincere boy who’s playing the two of you off against one another, and a reputation that requires continual care and rehabilitation in a school where everyone knows whom you’ve kissed over the years. A large part of Claire’s story is embedded in the circumstances surrounding those kisses, which are treated as inserted memories that interrupt and contextualize the ongoing present narrative. Through these memories, Claire relates the complicated causes and sometimes momentous, sometimes forgettable effects of kissing, from second-grade surprises to seventh-grade mistakes to the higher stakes of high school kissing that lead to slut-shaming and the temporary loss of your best friends. In the end, the most important breakups and makeups for Claire are with her female friends, and their sensible, forthright confrontations model the possibility for strong, supportive female friendships. Claire’s voice is fresh and funny, with just the right amount of self-aware irony and emotional range to create a relatable, likable, completely ordinary heroine.