Name: Kiss Number 8
ISBN: 9781250196934

Colleen AF Venable

Mads is pretty happy with her life. She hangs out with her best friend Cat, she goes to church with her mom and dad, she goofs off with Adam from next door (who might as well be her little brother) and she kind of muddles through high school. It's great, it's fine, until it isn't anymore. Because Adam is in love with Mads. And Mads is in love with Cat. And Mads's dad is hiding something big-something that could tear their family apart. Suddenly Mads's tidy little life has gotten epically messy-and epically heartbreaking. But when your heart is broken, it takes more than eight awkward, uncomfortable, tooth-clashing, friendship-ending kisses to put things right again. It takes at least nine.

Kiss Number 8

Sarah Sammis

The pacing is off.

As is the book is too complex with not enough time spent exploring all the themes. It reads like there was a checklist to be marked off along the way. Also the tone for much of book is very hostile to anyone who isn't cis-gendered, Catholic, and straight. It's not until Amanda is confronted with her own sexuality that the there is some backpedaling with the tone and by then it's much too late

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Moth

This is a tough read. It’s homophonic and transphobic. It dead names. I get trying to see it from Amanda’s POV but it’s also dangerous. Did it remind me of my coming out? Yes. But my coming out was traumatic and not on my terms. It reminded me of how my dads family didn’t accept me. I don’t think the point was done well.

Courtney 

A 2019 New York Public Library Best Books for Kids A 2020 Tayshas Reading List Selection A 2020 Maverick Graphic Novel Reading List Selection Mads is pretty happy with her life. She goes to church with her family, and minor league baseball games with her dad. She goofs off with her best friend Cat, and has thus far managed to avoid getting kissed by Adam, the boy next door. It's everything she hoped high school would be... until all of a sudden, it's not. Her dad is hiding something big—so big it could tear her family apart. And that’s just the beginning of her problems: Mads is starting to figure out that she doesn't want to kiss Adam... because the only person she wants to kiss is Cat. Kiss Number 8, a graphic novel from writer Colleen AF Venable and illustrator Ellen T. Crenshaw, is a layered, funny, sharp-edged story of teen sexuality and family secrets.

Flavia Louise

I stumbled upon this one while browsing my library's digital queer collection and I do highly recommend it. However this is not what it might look like. This is not some cutesy romance like the cover might suggest. It is a book that deals very heavily with trans- and homophobia especially within religious surroundings. If you decide to read it, please take care of yourself.

Kim Tyo-Dickerson

This is a very real graphic novel about family secrets and how a young woman navigates the world of her private Catholic high school, making mistakes and steps forward in equal measure, growing into an awareness of her complex sexual identity. Not a romance, this is realistic/historical fiction, set in 2004, that doesn't pull any punches about LGBTQ+ lives and includes characters that express homophobia and transphobia alongside characters who embody all the cattiness and emotional hurts of teenage friendships in a claustrophobic small town culture. It is not very comfortable for most of us to remember all the sloppy, experimental kissing we had to experience until we found the people that were our people, the ones we loved and the one that loved us for who we are. This book helps us all realize that the mistakes and the impulses and the ways we need to forgive our friends, our families and ourselves are the only ways through adolescence. And the view at the end into the future is especially sweet when most YA novels don't move beyond the resolution of the current story. A read-alike for older readers who enjoyed Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Recommended for students grades 9 and up, ages 14 and up.

Samantha Seeman

4.5*
For a story that I put off for quite a while, it ended up being rather enjoyable. It’s a graphic novel about a teen named Amanda, who is discovering herself and telling her story through a series of “kisses.” It kind of reminds me of Evelyn Hugo where it tells her story based on the husband at that time. Amanda goes to a Catholic high school and while she has been known to cause trouble and kiss a couple boys, she never really stays with them, or feels completely comfortable. There are a lot of queer and trans-phobic scenes/characters/dialogue, but I think that was the point. While tough to read at times, it was dealt with well (I think) and important subject matter to cover. There is also a huge family secret and bits of abuse so I suppose trigger warnings for all that are necessary. Over all, I thought it was a fairly unique story that covered a lot of tough subjects in an interesting and easy to understand way.