I Kissed Shara Wheeler

McQuiston is known for their New York Times best-selling romantic comedies Red, White & Royal Blue and One Last Stop. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is their first young adult novel. McQuiston was born and raised in Southern Louisiana and now lives in New York City. As a nonbinary person, McQuiston uses the pronouns they and them.

McQuiston’s debut young adult novel explores coming-of-age themes of identity, rebellion, and maturity while also fostering awareness of diverse sexual and gender identities. The novel is set in False Beach, Alabama, a rural and upscale town in the Bible Belt with a conservative Christian demographic like the community in which McQuiston was raised. Chloe and the other high-school students in the novel attend Willowgrove Christian Academy, at which students who are not straight and cisgendered are met with shame and punishment. In the Acknowledgements for the novel, McQuiston writes, “I know intimately that the Bible Belt contains some of the best, warmest, weirdest, queerest kids you’ll ever meet, whether or not they even know that last part yet. If you’re one of those kids, I wanted this book to exist for you” (353). McQuiston writes to these young queer people, “You deserve ridiculous, over-the-top high school rom-coms about teenagers like you, just like the straight kids have!” (353).

The novel provides a representation of queer adolescents who live in conservative Christian communities. It also represents the diverse experiences that exist within the LGBTQIA+ community, from being in the closet to being “out,” from having the support of family to keeping one’s identity hidden, from being gay or lesbian to being bisexual, and from being cisgender to being transgender or nonbinary. The novel represents a spectrum of experiences that transcend the gender stereotypes found in traditional YA romances. The text also offers an inclusive version of faith that welcomes a diversity of sexualities and genders.

Although Chloe, the novel’s protagonist, is openly bisexual, she is inclined to judge others based on stereotypes, casting them as gender tropes such as the pure Christian girl, the snobby popular girl, the archetypically masculine quarterback, and the sensitive musician pining over the girl of his dreams. While seeking to crack the mystery of Shara’s disappearance, Chloe builds relationships with people with whom she never imagined she would connect and discovers they have more in common than she had thought. She realizes that in a setting in which people are taught to fear others’ judgment and hide from their true selves, many people are hidden behind heteronormative and cisgender facades and have yet to discover and reveal their true identities.

The theme of identity is linked with the theme of rebellion. The novel conveys rebellion in many forms, such as against puritanical rules, shaming and oppression, racism, and corruption. The culture at Willowgrove Christian Academy is one of surveillance and conformity. From the school dress code to the shaming of noncisgender and nonheterosexual people, the culture suppresses students’ individuality and complexity. Moreover, the town of False Beach champions racist people in history through street signs and statues, and some of its wealthy residents use their wealth and power for selfish purposes.