Kassiah

I don't want to be harsh, so I'm giving this two stars. Honestly, I am thinking more like 1-1/2 stars, and I am considering putting this on my do not waste your time shelf. I'm still thinking about that.

No question about it, the cover of this book is beautiful. It has this couple that makes you think that they are just totally crazy about each other, right? You can feel it. Sadly, the characters in the book did not live up to the title or the cover for me.

Leah, a high-school almost senior, has been following her two older sisters footsteps for as long as she can remember in a cookie-cutter, seemingly perfect life. She has the right boyfriend, she's a cheerleader, set to be valedictorian, and generally everything goes her way. She meets and makes out with a boy who turns her world...well, supposedly upside down.

And therein lies the problem. We don't know enough about this boy, or see enough from him, to get why she can't stay away. Leah doesn't do enough to show that's she's really all scrambled up inside. I've said this a thousand times before, but if you are going to write about a heroine who is considering going against everything she's been taught, everything she believes in, and potentially give up everything because she falls in love with the wrong boy (or falls in love at all), then you damned well better make sure she's totally in love. Or the readers don't believe the struggle she's going through. We need to feel it. Porter/Duffy/whateverhisnameis does say some swoony things, just not nearly enough to make you root for them (or anyone, except maybe Freddie and Evan).

And this relationship? If you can call it that? I don't believe in it. I don't get it. Yeah, he's hot and he stands up for himself, but really? Is that all that there is to him? This is going to surprise some of you, but the fact that he drinks orange juice isn't enough to make me swoon. I also have another issue, and that's with the boy's name. He's introduced to us as Porter, and we later find out that that isn't his name at all. She calls him his real name, or a variation of it, some, but it feels weird to me. I don't really get what the whole switch up the love interests name in the middle of the novel for no apparent reason was about, but it left me confused. It's not like he had a split personality and his alter ego was only for her. idk idk

Add to that, I didn't see any character growth, at all. Like her pseudo-friend Valerie, I would have liked to see her try. I would have liked to see less of her thinking about assessing the perfection or non-perfection of her life and see her actually doing something to break out of the mold.

Luckily, this was a very quick read. Don't let the fact that it took me a week fool you. I read the first two chapters one Saturday, and had to make myself pick it up again to finish. I would have flounced, but I felt like there must be something coming to make it all worthwhile.

With a strong title like Kiss Crush Collide, I expected there to be more kissing, more crushing, and more collision. Unfortunately, this just fell flat for me. Meh.