French Kiss

Publishers Weekly

There is snogging and sparring aplenty in Manning's (Guitar Girl) appealing if rather overwrought launch title in the Diary of a Crush trilogy, which started as a fictional column in a now-defunct British teen mag. In her diary entries, 16-year-old Edie bemoans her family's recent move; she feels like a "socially dysfunctional freak of nature" at her new college. Yet her "spiritual self shift[s] into orbit" when she locks eyes with gorgeous, 19-year-old Dylan, whose "face was all hard planes and angles, cheekbones and jawline softened only by these pillowy lips." Those pillowy lips become quite familiar to Edie, who presses her lips to his and becomes obsessed with the guy despite warnings about his many past dalliances. Dylan's aloofness between kissing sessions rankles Edie, who begins dating an attentive, sincere classmate on the sly. Edie's emotional roller coaster ride hits high and low points on a school trip to Paris, where she finally issues Dylan an ultimatum ("I want everything or nothing"). Dylan agrees to everything yet the title of the second installment, Kiss and Make Up (ISBN 0-14-240642-2), hints at more ups and downs to come (and the third, Sealed with a Kiss, ISBN 0-14-240648-1, suggests a happy ending?). Despite the tale's repetition and ample melodrama, readers with a fondness for romantic soap opera will find these smooching characters quite entertaining. Ages 14-up. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

Edie Wheeler (pronounced Eee-dee and not Eddie, as she would politely correct you) is a sixteen-year-old girl entering her first year of A-level classes at a British college. She moves from her home in Brighton to attend school in Manchester, and in stereotypical new-kid style, Edie finds herself as the odd one out at a school full of “achingly cool” art, fashion, and drama students. Early on, she spots Dylan, a handsome art-boy whom she christens the “heir to her heart.” Edie saunters into her photography class late on the first day and discovers the only available seat is next to Dylan. Eventually, Edie begins to adapt to the haute-couture lifestyle of the posh art school, and an innocent romance begins to develop between her and Dylan. A photography class trip to Paris offers the pair a potential storybook setting for the start of their budding relationship, but a bitter and jealous love-hexagon of sorts threatens to wedge its way between them. In this quasi-epistolary novel, Edie’s diary entries capture the very essence of what it is like to be sixteen and infatuated. While some of the plot elements seem so unbelievably convenient as to merit an eye-roll, readers find themselves secretly wanting the plot to play out the way it does. Manning creates a dynamic character in Edie, who is confident, intelligent, quirky, and hopelessly romantic, but firm in her morals. This feel-good novel is brimming with British slang, fashion tips, and designer name-dropping that is sure to have its young adult readers googling Jane Seberg’s “fringe” to duplicate the hairstyle. With two more books in the series, it is probably a good thing that Diary is such a quick read. Readers will beclamoring to pick up right where Edie and Dylan left off. Reviewer: Logan Hull