Confessions of a Serial Kisser

Confessions of a Serial Kisser

Does the perfect kiss exist? This smart and funny modern romance from the author of Flipped explores the pleasures and perils of love. Perfect for fans of Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.   Evangeline Logan wants a kiss. Not just any kiss—a “crimson kiss,” like the one in a romance novel she’s become obsessed with. But the path to perfection is paved with many bad kisses—the smash mouth, the ear licker, the “misser,” the tentative tight lipper.   The phrase “I don’t kiss and tell” means nothing to the boys in her school. And worse: someone starts writing her name and number on bathroom walls. And worst of all: the boy she’s just kissed turns out to be her best friend’s new crush.   Kissing turns out to be way more complicated than the romance novels would have you believe. . . .   “Evangeline’s strong, entertaining voice will pull plenty of readers, who will root for their heroine as she begins to piece together a grown-up life.” — Booklist    “The pacing is near-perfect: readers realize, just when Evangeline does, that it is not a kiss she is [really] after. In the end, the playful title and premise are matched by tender and convincing storytelling.” — Publishers Weekly Praise for Confessions of a Serial Kisser: "Not the usual chick-lit fare. This great novel will no doubt expose Van Draanen to a while new legion of fans." -- VOYA "The pacing is near-perfect: readers realize, just when Evangeline does, that it is not a kiss she is [really] after. In the end, the playful title and premise are matched by tender and convincing storytelling." -- Publishers Weekly "With a quick pace [and] romantic suspense, Van Draanen's novel is compulsively readable."-- School Library Journal "Evangeline's strong, entertaining voice will pull plenty of readers, who will root for their heroine as she begins to piece together a grown-up life." -- Booklist  Wendelin Van Draanen is the author of many beloved and award-winning books. For middle graders, she’s written Swear to Howdy and the Sammy Keyes mystery series. For teens and tweens, there’s Flipped, The Running Dream, Confessions of a Serial Kisser, and Runaway. And for younger readers, check out the Shredderman quartet and the Gecko and Sticky series. Wendelin Van Draanen lives in Central California with her husband and two sons. Find her on the Web at WendelinVanDraanen.com or on Twitter at @WendelinVanD. 1 Dirty Laundry My name is Evangeline Bianca Logan, and I am a serial kisser. I haven’t always been a serial kisser. There was a time not that long ago when I had next to no kissing experience. It’s interesting how things can change so fast—how you can go from being sixteen with very few lip-locking credentials to being barely seventeen and a certified serial kisser. It all started one day with dirty laundry. At least that’s what I trace it back to. My mother had said, “Evangeline, please. I could really use some help around the house.” She’d looked so tired, and what with homework and the amount of time I’d been wasting at Groove Records looking through old LPs and CDs, I had been slacking. Especially compared to the hours she’d been working. So after school the next day I kicked into gear. I had the condo to myself because Mom was working her usual eleven a.m. to eight p.m. shift, and since my taste in music is old blues and classic rock (probably thanks to being bombarded with it since my early days in the womb), I selected an Aerosmith greatest hits CD and cranked it up. I made the kitchen spotless during “Mama Kin,” “Dream On,” “Same Old Song and Dance,” and “Seasons of Wither,” sang along with “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” while I cleaned the bathroom, then tidied the bedrooms through “Last Child” and “Back in the Saddle.” It was during the pulsing beat of “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” that I began my fateful search for wayward laundry. Laundry at the Logan girls’ residence isn’t found in hampers. It’s found on the floor, draped over chairs, putrefying in boxes and baskets . . . it’s anywhere my mom and I want to dump it. And in my rocked-out state I was checking for laundry in places I’d never looked before. Like on her closet floor, behind and between the big packing boxes that still serve as my mother’s dresser, and then under my mother’s bed. It was there that I discovered one dusty sock and a whole library of books. Not just random books, either. Romance books. At first all I could do was gawk at the covers. I’d seen these kinds of books at the grocery store, but they were so obviously stupid and trashy that I wouldn’t be caught dead actually looking at one. But now here I was with a whole library of trash in front of me and no worries that someone might spot me. So as strains of “Angel” began playing, I looked! I checked out all the covers, then started reading the blurbs on the backs. Aerosmith eventually quit playing, but I didn’t even notice. I was skimming pages, laughing at the ridic