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    Kissing in America
    Kissing in America
    Kissing in America
    Audiobook9 hours

    Kissing in America

    Written by Margo Rabb

    Narrated by Laura Knight Keating

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A must-read for fans of Jenny Han! Acclaimed writer Margo Rabb’s Kissing in America is “a wonderful novel about friendship, love, travel, life, hope, poetry, intelligence, and the inner lives of girls,” raves internationally bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love).

    In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels—118 of them, to be exact—to dull the pain of her loss that’s still so present. Her romantic fantasies become a reality when she meets Will, who can relate to Eva’s grief. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head-over-heels for him, he picks up and moves to California with barely any warning. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness—and, perhaps, her first shot at real love—Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan to travel to the west coast. As they road trip across America, Eva and Annie confront the complex truth about love. 

    In this honest and emotional journey that National Book Award Finalist Sara Zarr calls “gorgeous, funny, and joyous,” readers will experience the highs of infatuation and the lows of heartache as Eva contends with love in all of its forms. 

    Since publication, this novel received 4 starred reviews and has been named:

    • A Chicago Public Library Best Teen Book of the Year
    • A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens
    • A Miami Herald Best Book of the Year
    • A Spirit of Texas selection
    • A TAYSHAS High School Reading List Selection
    • An Oprah Summer Reading List selection
    • A Junior Library Guild selection
    • An Amazon Best Book of the Month
    • A Publisher’s Lunch Buzz Book for Young Adults
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 26, 2015
    ISBN9780062397577
    Author

    Margo Rabb

    Margo Rabb is the author of the novels Kissing in America and Cures for Heartbreak; both received four starred reviews and were named to multiple best-of-the-year lists. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Seventeen and have been broadcast on NPR. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in the Atlantic fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. Margo grew up in Queens, NY, and currently lives near Philadelphia with her family. Visit her online at www.margorabb.com.

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    Reviews for Kissing in America

    3.5/5

    71 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      To cope with her father's death, sixteen-year-old Eva has buried herself in romance novels which is much to the despair of her feminist mother. It is the only way she can cope with the loss of her beloved father in a plane crash. Her mother's way of coping is to get rid of all of her father's possessions and never talk about him. Eva manages to save a few random things. One thing she hasn't been able to save is her love of writing. She and her father would fill notebook after notebook with stories and poems. When Eva meets Will in an after-school tutoring program, she feels her dreams of a epic romance have finally come true. Will has grief issues of his own. His mother is still mourning the crib death of Will's brother, his father has left the family, and his mother is losing her business. They bond because they are both dealing with grief. When Will has to leave New York to live with his father in California, Eva is determined to get their to visit him.When a chance comes for her best friend Annie to take part in a contest for Smartest Girl in America and bring Eva along as her lifeline, the two girls seize the opportunity. It takes a lot of convincing before Eva can convince her mother to let her go. The girls are planning to travel from New York City to Los Angeles by bus. With the addition of various stops at the homes of relatives and friends, the girls make their way to Los Angeles. Along the Eva learns more about her mother's reasons for the way she deals with grief and her world opens up as she sees something different than New York City. I thought this story was very well written. I really liked Eva. I also liked the portrayal of grief as shown by the way a number of the characters deal with it. I also thought that Eva's romance was very well done. I laughed out loud a couple of times as Eva quoted her beloved historical romances. I liked the various pieces of poetry that began each section of the book. I'll be buying a copy of this one for my high school media center.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Kissing In America was the sad but ultimately sweet story of Eva, a young lady who lost her father two years earlier. Still dealing with his loss, Eva has become obsessed with Romance novels. She deals with her grief by comparing real life situations with the characters in her books. Eva and her mother aren't coping well with the loss of their loved one, understandably. While Eva's mother deals with the loss of her husband by denying he ever existed and being excessively overprotected of her daughter, Eva tries to hang on to her memories of him by secreting away his belongings, no matter how innocuous they maybe, old receipts for example. Since her mother threw away most of her father's things this is how Eva has to hold on the the things she can.

      I felt really bad for Eva, she lost her father and in a sense her mother too. Eva's mother basically became a cold, distant shell of the mother she once knew, who sometimes acted as if her husband just got up and left them. I really wish she would have snapped out it and saw that her daughter needed her mother. We did learn that this is the typical way her mother grieves, which I thought was very unfortunate for both her and Eva. Her entire grieving process seems to be stuck on feeling abandoned.

      Eva has always had a long standing crush on a guy named Will, but he had a supermodelesque girlfriend which Eva thinks means no chance for anything with him. However, she soon becomes his tutor, then a friend and confidant.. When Will and his girlfriend broke up she finally has a chance with him, and Will also seems interested too when he kisses her. But Eva's chance was cut short rather quickly when Will moved to California. Eva had this obsessive need to continue what they started and thought she just has to see him in person and concocted an insane plan to travel cross country to see him. She came to the conclusion she was in love with him and became even more obsessed to see him. This obsession caused her to make some unwise decisions such as disappointing her best friend Annie and lying to everyone involved.

      During that road trip Eva learned valuable lessons and had to face up to her mistakes, she learned to not make rash decisions, and to do things for yourself not for a guy, especially when it comes to travelling a long distance an deceiving and using others to do so. Along the way we got to meet some interesting and quirky characters. And learned more about Eva's mothers past and other interesting stories. Eva also had her showdown with her mother during her road trip, I thought finally, now maybe her mother would wake up and they can start working on their relationship.

      I liked Eva, even with her naivete and obsessiveness she did have a great sense of humor. She would have these weird but kinda funny asides where she makes her life sounds like a romance novel when she romanticizes her situation in her version of a romance novelish voice. I thought it was really cute and totally weird at the same time. I could have easily seen Eva as a typical young girl whose completely guy crazy and not sympathize with her, but I didn't, I was able to see the pain Eva was trying to out run. Eva was very close with her father and losing him so suddenly was traumatic. Perhaps she was trying to forget just like her mother but in a different way. Eva eventually learned that focusing all her attention on a boy was not going to help her cope with the fear and confusion that she was dealing with after losing her father.

      Audiobook Review
      This being an audiobook played a huge part in how much I liked the story. It made me love it that much more. I really liked the voice of the narrator. I thought she was spot on with Eva's voice and did a great job with all the other voices too.

      Overall
      I thought Kissing In American was a nice story about how life throws major curveballs at you when you least expect it and it's how you handle it that makes you stronger in the end. And that although love brings heartache with it it also brings strength.

      Oh, and something I really liked and appreciated about this book was that I finally read something with a real New York setting. I could count on one hand all the books with NYC settings I've read. Every neighborhood and place mentioned in this story about NYC was familiar, There was one other NYC book I read that touched on the backdrop that is NYC but just barely. Every other book I've read was set in other places, (places I would love to visit, that's for sure). But the NYC setting was a really great surprise for me, it also did bring back some memories too.
    • 3/5
      Digital Audiobook read by Laura Knight Keating From the Book Jacket In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels – 118 of them, to be exact. Her romantic fantasies become reality when she meets Will. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head over heels for him, he picks up and moves to California. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness – and, perhaps, her shot at real love – Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan to travel to the West coast to see Will again. As they road-trip across America, Eva and Annie encounter cowboys, kudzu, and tiny towns without stoplights. Along the way the confront the complex truth about love. My ReactionsThis is a young-adult “romance” with very little romance. Instead, it is more of a coming-of-age story. Eva’s passion for cheesy romance novels was a little irritating at first, but to give Rabb some credit she deliberately has these teens occasionally speak in the extravagant prose of bodice-ripping romances; clearly, she is having fun with the genre. While I understand that Eva’s emotional growth might have been stunted by her father’s early death and her mother’s resultant over-protectiveness, I still thought she was incredibly immature, and I was rolling my eyes at several scenes. Ultimately Eva learns some important life lessons – about grief, friendship, and forgiveness. Final verdict: it’s a decent YA novel. But not really my cup of tea.The audiobook is read by Laura Knight Keating. She has a good pace and she really brings the cast of quirky characters to life.
    • 3/5
      Kissing In America was the sad but ultimately sweet story of Eva, a young lady who lost her father two years earlier. Still dealing with his loss, Eva has become obsessed with Romance novels. She deals with her grief by comparing real life situations with the characters in her books. Eva and her mother aren't coping well with the loss of their loved one, understandably. While Eva's mother deals with the loss of her husband by denying he ever existed and being excessively overprotected of her daughter, Eva tries to hang on to her memories of him by secreting away his belongings, no matter how innocuous they maybe, old receipts for example. Since her mother threw away most of her father's things this is how Eva has to hold on the the things she can.

      I felt really bad for Eva, she lost her father and in a sense her mother too. Eva's mother basically became a cold, distant shell of the mother she once knew, who sometimes acted as if her husband just got up and left them. I really wish she would have snapped out it and saw that her daughter needed her mother. We did learn that this is the typical way her mother grieves, which I thought was very unfortunate for both her and Eva. Her entire grieving process seems to be stuck on feeling abandoned.

      Eva has always had a long standing crush on a guy named Will, but he had a supermodelesque girlfriend which Eva thinks means no chance for anything with him. However, she soon becomes his tutor, then a friend and confidant.. When Will and his girlfriend broke up she finally has a chance with him, and Will also seems interested too when he kisses her. But Eva's chance was cut short rather quickly when Will moved to California. Eva had this obsessive need to continue what they started and thought she just has to see him in person and concocted an insane plan to travel cross country to see him. She came to the conclusion she was in love with him and became even more obsessed to see him. This obsession caused her to make some unwise decisions such as disappointing her best friend Annie and lying to everyone involved.

      During that road trip Eva learned valuable lessons and had to face up to her mistakes, she learned to not make rash decisions, and to do things for yourself not for a guy, especially when it comes to travelling a long distance an deceiving and using others to do so. Along the way we got to meet some interesting and quirky characters. And learned more about Eva's mothers past and other interesting stories. Eva also had her showdown with her mother during her road trip, I thought finally, now maybe her mother would wake up and they can start working on their relationship.

      I liked Eva, even with her naivete and obsessiveness she did have a great sense of humor. She would have these weird but kinda funny asides where she makes her life sounds like a romance novel when she romanticizes her situation in her version of a romance novelish voice. I thought it was really cute and totally weird at the same time. I could have easily seen Eva as a typical young girl whose completely guy crazy and not sympathize with her, but I didn't, I was able to see the pain Eva was trying to out run. Eva was very close with her father and losing him so suddenly was traumatic. Perhaps she was trying to forget just like her mother but in a different way. Eva eventually learned that focusing all her attention on a boy was not going to help her cope with the fear and confusion that she was dealing with after losing her father.

      Audiobook Review
      This being an audiobook played a huge part in how much I liked the story. It made me love it that much more. I really liked the voice of the narrator. I thought she was spot on with Eva's voice and did a great job with all the other voices too.

      Overall
      I thought Kissing In American was a nice story about how life throws major curveballs at you when you least expect it and it's how you handle it that makes you stronger in the end. And that although love brings heartache with it it also brings strength.

      Oh, and something I really liked and appreciated about this book was that I finally read something with a real New York setting. I could count on one hand all the books with NYC settings I've read. Every neighborhood and place mentioned in this story about NYC was familiar, There was one other NYC book I read that touched on the backdrop that is NYC but just barely. Every other book I've read was set in other places, (places I would love to visit, that's for sure). But the NYC setting was a really great surprise for me, it also did bring back some memories too.
    • 5/5
      A cross-country trip to see a boy turns into a voyage of self-discovery. I expected a typical YA romance, but this book ended up subverting my expectations with its surprising depths. It's less about the romance, more about friendship and grief and travel and loyalty and the complexities of the relationships between teenage daughters and their mothers. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      This novel is realistic fiction geared for high school girls.Eva’s father died a few years ago, and she finds comfort in romance novels. Her father taught her the joy of life--taught her to laugh and write and live. She can no longer write because it’s too painful. She feels completely separated from her father, especially because her mother grieves differently. Eva’s mom threw all of his stuff out and refuses to talk about him. Eva needs to talk about him and have his things around her. The novels allow her to escape into a world she wants to experience--where you live and laugh and love, but her mother says that the novels lie--that love in real life is not like love described in books. While tutoring in the library, Eva gets to know Will. A confident, popular boy at school who secretly reads poetry and has his own grief hidden deep. They have one night together where they connect completely just talking about their lives and their families. They are obviously meant for each other. Unfortunately, Will needs to live with his father, which means a move to California. In her desire to see Will, Eva searches everything on the Internet until she finds a legitimate reality show looking for the smartest girl in American. Luckily, her best friend Annie is incredibly smart. Accepted onto the show, Eva and Annie take buses across the country from New York to LA in hopes of finding money for Annie to attend college and finding love for Eva.Any time characters travel, the story is about the main character’s journey to knowledge. There are always experiences to teach along the way. Eva and Annie spend each night with members of their families or with friends to ensure their safety. By the end of the trip, there are five women who finish the novel, each with her own wisdom, own courage, and own story of love. It’s a novel for young women, not young girls, to present the different ways of love throughout one’s life. Poetry helps structure the novel--introducing ideas and giving meaning to life. Any girl or woman who reads with thought and believes in love, change, and courage, will enjoy this well-written novel.
    • 4/5
      In Kissing in America, Margo Rabb has put a new twist on the road-trip story, KissingInAmericagrowing up story and realistic fiction story. Eva Roth’s father died when his plane crashed into the ocean two years ago. No bodies were recovered. Eva and her mother went to counseling and have joined a chat room about the accident. But it’s almost like her mother has forgotten her father: she’s thrown out his belongings and never talks about him. (Eva managed to salvage a few of his possessions.) To numb the pain, Eva’s fills up her time reading mindless romance novels. Even though she knows real love isn’t like the books, it gives her hope.Towards the end of her junior year in high school Eva meets Will and romance starts to bloom, just like in her romance novels. However, his divorced mother is in bad financial straits and they’re forced to vacate their apartment. She moves into the one bedroom apartment of her friend and Will decides he’s better off living in California with his father. After a sad goodbye, Eva is now wondering how to get from Queens, NY to Los Angeles to visit her true love.When she hears about a televised contest The Smartest Girl in America, she convinces her genius friend, Annie, that they should enter–actually Annie should enter and Eva be her ‘go to’ companion. The winner will receive a $200,000 scholarship and Annie desperately wants to go to MIT. Of course, the program will be conducted in Los Angeles.Kissing in America follows Annie and Eva on their two-week cross country bus trip, stopping at friends and relatives in Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Arizona along the way. Annie and Eva are a study in contrasts, the former postponing love until college while Eva is desperate for it, possibly to provide something her mother seems incapable of providing. But of course there is more than meets the eye in the various adult characters and Eva learns this through her interactions with family and friends.This is the second book recently where something terrible happens and parents either over react by becoming overly protective and/or shut down totally, depriving their children of the love and attention they want and need. It is also the case where the children are too shy or insecure to say what they feel, to open the dialogue that might get a parent/child relationship back on track.Each major section of the book starts with a poem. And Ms. Rabb entices readers with this (which is really just a come on since there are very few other romance novel quotes that are worthy of reprinting):“Sir Richard’s chest sparkled with man-dew as he whispered “Lilith, it may hurt you when I burst they womanhood.” “Hurt me,” Lilith breathed. Her rosy domes undulated like the sea as he joined her in a love that vanquished every sorrow known on earth.”I’m not going to tell you that you can’t predict what’s going to happen because that would be a lie. Much of what happens in the end you can predict in the beginning. But as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Life is a Journey, Not a Destination.”. If it’s any indication, I stayed up until 12:30 AM to finish the book, so it must have been an enjoyable journey.