After the Kiss by Terra Elan McVoy

Love triangles are not typically this well spoken. Camille is the typical new girl in town with a chip on her shoulder thanks to a not-so-wonderful guy in Chicago. Becca is a relatively smart local chick infatuated with poetic, jock Alec. These two girls have more in common than they think when it turns out that Alec kissed Camille at a party. Being unaware of Alec's girlfriend situation, Camille does nothing to stop the kiss and, being Alec's girlfriend, Becca does everything she can not to lose her mind.

Each girl has her own issues and each one of them seems drawn to different parts of Alec, but in the end one of them has to lose.

Terra McVoy is a genius!! I was rather skeptical of this book at first because I find the "love triangle" story overused, but this was fresh. If you look deeper than just the surface you'll see more than angsty teen drama written in verse. The language of each girl is very distinctive and deliberate. There is so much feeling involved in these girls' stories that the novel begs to be read out loud.

Becca was such a nice girl that I had a hard time relating to her until she started to really look at what was important to her. I thought her whole outlook was a bit narrow and I was thrilled to see her rise up to the challenge of really getting to know herself as a person. Camille was such a difficult girl to like and that was very intentional. She's a tough nut to crack and watching her come out of her prickly shell was amazing. Terra said it best in her appearance at Quail Ridge Books, she really tried to start the girls out as opposites with exaggerated characteristics and them bring them into a harmony or balance where each girls seems to take on characteristics and mannerisms of the other.

A wonderful book that I highly recommend, After the Kiss is an instant hit!

ARC for review provided by Around the World Tours