After the kiss

Review by Booklist Review

In alternating sections, Camille's and Becca's poetry describes their senior years, their anticipation of future plans, and their romance with the same guy: Becca's long-term boyfriend, who goes to school with Camille. Though the kiss mentioned in the title doesn't happen until past the 100-page mark, the girls' stories on their own are interesting enough to keep the reader turning pages to find out just how the two girls, who do not initially know each other, are connected. As their stories intersect, Becca comes into her own without two-timing Alec, and Camille reconciles her feelings about the past in this quietly reflective novel. The two poets have distinctive styles and voices: Camille writes observant, second-person prose poems, while Becca is more traditional, even mimicking some of her favorite poets, such as Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop. This gives the narrative device a more natural feel like reading the teens' journals rather than reading about the teens in poetry form and helps the book stand out among novels in verse.--Booth, Heather Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

McVoy's (Pure) roots are showing-in a good way. A love of language, literature, and the city of Atlanta, where she lives, pervades her sophomore novel, a thoughtfully wrought coming-of-age story. Camille, whose second-person narrative is light on punctuation and heavy on metaphor, has moved all over the country with her parents and is starting her final semester of high school in Atlanta. She tries to avoid creating attachments, but is having trouble getting over a boy in Chicago. Another senior, Becca, who tells her story in free verse, lives for her jock/poet boyfriend, Alec. Camille connects with and then kisses Alec at a party, unaware that he has a girlfriend. The aftershock of the kiss affects both girls, but this rich story also encompasses their struggles with family and friends, as well as their respective journeys of self-discovery. McVoy's prose is confident and adventurous- some of Becca's poems are styled after her favorite poets ("The only empress is the empress of gossip magazines")-and while not every stylistic gambit pays off, on the whole it's a fresh, observant story. Ages 14-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

---

Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-Midway through senior year, Camille moves to Atlanta (her family's sixth move). She plans to simply go through the motions until she can escape to Europe after graduation. Meanwhile, at another school in town, Becca is jolted from the dreamlike state of her relationship with Alec when she gets in a fender bender and must find an after-school job to pay back her debt. The girls' lives collide when Camille meets Alec at a party, and, unaware that he is "taken," allows the haiku-spouting-but-athletic catcher to kiss her. At first blush, such a story line has the potential to play up every teen "mean girls" stereotype, yet McVoy elevates the narrative well above any predictable cat fight. Camille tells her side in stream-of-consciousness entries, while Becca speaks in free verse. The girls have distinct, believable voices, and the way in which they slowly become aware of one another rather than facing a direct confrontation shows that given different circumstances they might have been kindred spirits. Literary references and odes to famous poets pepper the pages. These are unobtrusive so that discerning readers will revel in their inclusion while others will skip over them but still enjoy the drama of the story. The result is a poignant tale of two girls on the brink of adulthood faced with real decisions about their future, who they want to be, and what role boys will play in their decisions.-Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Review by Horn Book Review

Frequently uprooted, Camille arrives at a new school in the middle of her senior year and tries to stay detached, tired of making and leaving friends. A random kiss and its fallout connect her to Becca, the girlfriend of the boy Camille kissed. The two teens alternate narration of affecting verse chapters as they struggle toward separate realizations about friends, relationships, and future plans. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Camille new house #6 pulling in the driveway all you can think is that this is the kind of house they were trying to duplicate back in charlotte: the real southern living deal--a big beautiful old (but newly renovated) house in an area they are calling the virginia highlands, with no hills to be seen and two states separated from virginia. there are brick-based columns across the wide front porch and a real swing and deep white rockers next to huge pots--vats really--full of what you are sure will be hydrangeas come springtime. it's so stereotypical south (and so very, very far from the noisy cold of chicago) that you want to laugh, but inside the floors are real, dark, smooth, polished aged wood--not parquet like in dc or tile like in houston--and the rugs are just as lush as in the sf penthouse. there are no long hallways to slide down in your socks like the chicago apartment, but rooms leading onto rooms opening into other rooms like a russian treasure box or an alice in wonderland maze. you cannot believe how much space there is here: wide-wide everything so wide. how your dad's company finds these places and what they pay for you to live in them you still can't get dad to answer, but you are grateful and astonished every time. this will never be your real home, but it (like the last one, and the one before that) is certainly beautiful, and you know your new friends will (like always) be jealous of where you live, can already hear them (whoever they are) saying i wish i could be you in that gushing-awed way that leaves you cold, because no one ever wants the thrown-around rag doll with the threadbare smile. no one wants to be a girl who's picked out her own embroidered heart, string by string, and left it for the birds to tangle in their nests. new homeroom #5 the eyes have it. seventeen pairs of them already turning as you come through the door. you could be argus great defender of juno with all the eyes you have, the eyes you've collected from all these new homerooms, these new schools, these new doorways you're always having to step through. you always wonder what you really look like to them, wonder what it would be to see out of all those different eyeballs ogling--green hazel blue brown brown flecked green--to get a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of yourself: forever always repeating only the surface and never having to look further in. new french teacher #3 is a man this time which interests you because usually they are the same type of used-up-looking woman: a woman in a floral-print skirt with espadrilles or else dansko sandals, with pale skin that is smooth and soft-looking but also thinning and with its own share of wrinkles (sometimes about the eyes, sometimes about the mouth, always the furrow between the brows), blue eyes usually and long or short hair it doesn't matter it is always dark and shot with gray. (and if she is blond, she doesn't have fun.) but no today you walk in (the eyes all upon you) and you are bonjour ed to your seat by a (blue-eyed, dark-haired, bearded) monsieur . tall and smiling (with wrinkling hands and pink but thinning cheeks) in his floral tie, he welcomes you with a nod and asks en francaise how comfortable are you with the language and when you answer back with your prepared little speech about reading camus in the original french this summer on your own for fun you see the same little glance of delight you always get with teachers: like a boy with a marzipan frog that has just leaped to life. the sunshine girl new-school day so far pretty smooth. there have been plenty of curious stares but no one's snickered or snubbed, which you take as a good sign. two seconds into your third period though and the bright blonde in front of you whips around, sticks out her hand like a company CEO and chirps, hey i'm ellen. this class is awesome. there's a waiting list so it's amazing you got in. you're going to love it. you hear yourself tell her your name is camille, you just moved from chicago, and then there's something in the way she's said it--something in her bright frankness--that just by looking at her yachting good looks and her hemp-bead bracelets you know that she's right--that you will love this class, and not just because it's about mid-twentieth-century literature. by the time the teacher starts, you have programmed each other's numbers. by the time class is over, she has her arm linked in yours and is showing you the best shortcut, explaining what to expect from the rest of your schedule, saying it's weird you're the new girl in their final semester, but that everyone will love you. that you're going to have fun. by the time the day is over, you have plans for the weekend, and--somehow--with nothing like the herculean efforts required in chicago, the role of atlanta bff is--just like that--filled. on being the new girl: atlanta rules it's not a bad thing that mom aims for smarts, beauty, and popularity in you. be glad for private school and advanced classes and intelligent teachers and the lack of neanderthalism in general. volunteer after school like last time. keep up the appearance, too. as was the case in sf and chicago, being good-looking still makes everyone want to know who you are, which means, at least, you don't have to eat by yourself, and you have something to do on weekends. interchangeable friends: from chicago to atlanta bff roxy becomes bff ellen. paula and gregor become jessica and flip. mrs. haskell is mrs. capriola and mr. fenway is ms. clary, for sure. betsy is autumn and olive is now connor. there's a gracen to avoid instead of a stephanie to sidestep, but also look out for bryce and her flock of straight-hairs. dorie and willow are eager to include you just like molly and lucy. sam-paul-jordan-ted in photography class are just like whatever-their-names-were--football guys, enough said. and though it's not like you're looking, he-who-shall-not-be-named is still neither duplicated nor replaced, because there will never (you are certain you will make sure of it) be somebody like him again. © 2010 Terra Elan McVoy Excerpted from After the Kiss by Terra Elan McVoy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---