Rhodes and Iliana were friends and then enemies. Unknowingly, they've connected online creating an Alice in Wonderland fanfiction page. The question is whether that can transcend their muddled history. In addition they are competing for the same art scholarship.

I Kissed Alice is an enjoyable book. The only problem is that Iliana wasn't, to me, a very likeable character. So in some respects I didn't think Rhodes deserved her. I've read better friend-enemy-friend books. ( )

3.5 ( )

So conflicted. This was NOT what I expected to read at all, and I think it'll trick lots of people with that bubbly cover and cute premise. This is hardly a romance. This is an occasionally super frustrating, drama-focused study about just how complex and nuanced (and oh god so frustrating) people can be.

It's one of those books that I can't say I enjoyed, but I loved it just for pushing the envelope. I've got a weird fondness for books that piss me off - and then force me to wonder, wait, am I purposely being pissed off? damn it she got me again

For one - this was no cheap, 'well they kinda think the other is annoying' enemies-to-lovers. The animosity here pulled no punches. Perfectly toed the line with drama as rough & convincing as it can get between two real-life teen girls without crossing into bullying or inexcusable things. As much as I don't care for drama, again, I have to point out that this is the spitting-fire trope that we've been waiting for, especially in f/f. But again - is not a romance. They take forever to start repairing this.

And next - the main characters were nothing short of infuriating. I was always rolling my eyes at Rhodes's stubborn, pretentious-artiste attitude, and Iliana's constant making everyone out to be such a horrible enemy when she was obviously the biggest shit-stirrer there. It made the bulk of the book agony for me, but they thankfully learned their lessons at the end. Again I HATED it but Birch really went out here and made the kind of grating personalities required for a convincing animosity, so how can I even blame her???

Besides these subjective things though, the first while felt weirdly unclear to me, and sometimes a characters' personality & secrets was more revealed in terms of breadth rather than depth so I wasn't quite buying it. Read: the entire thing with Sarah. It took me forever to catch on that Iliana wasn't just being entirely unfair to her, and I still have a weird feeling that, like, the sabotage subplot was thrown in to convince me of something i don't think she deserved. weird. I also 100000% never bought the romance, because we were rarely given any kind moments between Alice & Cheshire in the first place. I think they forgave each other organically, but again, barreled right into smooching when I don't think they...deserved it?

Regardless, I think people will be surprised by this, and hopefully pleasantly...kudos to the author for really going for it, in creating these nuanced, annoying, flawed, and ultimately sympathetic characters, taking this trope to the next level. ( )

fangirl meets simon vs the homosapiens agenda but make it sapphic.