Winter and her best friend Sloane are sick of not being noticed. So, the summer before grade 10, they make a pact to do whatever it takes to become popular. But when Sloane gets chummy with the high school royalty, she leaves Winter behind in the dust. As revenge, Winter starts an anonymous blog, spilling all of Sloane's dirty little secrets to the world. But as the blog becomes increasingly popular and Winter receives an opportunity to make it into a novel and maybe even a film, she is forced to reconsider her decisions and decide, once and for all, how low will she go for popularity?
The first books I ever read by Alyson Noël were the Evermore series. I read Faking 19 after them and didn't think it to be as well written or have as good a storyline. I was a bit hesitant to read to book, believing it to be more similar to Faking 19 than Evermore, but I was pleasantly surprised. It didn't remind me of either; I found it to be in between both. It was much better than Faking 19; more cleverly written, lots of fun, and it didn't have the seriousness of Evermore. It was a light, quick read, but still had plenty of detail packed in; not so much as to make it go over my head, though. I thought this book was quite cute, with lots of teenage drama!
When Winter created her blog, it was actually almost halfway into the book. I found this surprising, since this blog was what the whole story was about! But instead of making the beginning boring, I found the building and lead-up to the blog to be quite intriguing. Plenty of back story was good, in this case, so that you can get a feel for the characters and understand their motives. I came to hate Sloane. In the beginning of the novel, she was a good friend, but as soon as popularity came calling, she was headed for the hills! It gave good reason for Winter to begin her blog. She actually kept the entire blog anonymous, not just her, as the writer. In it, she referred to Sloane as Princess Pink, P.P. for short. I did find the end of the story predictable, though: Sloane confronting Winter about her blog. I had thought, however, that Sloane would becomes Winter's friend again, or at least apologize for her actions. Neither alternative ending happened; instead, Sloane stormed off in a huff and her downfall from popularity began.
The high school written about in this story was very close to realistic, in my opinion. Much swearing, dating, graffiti, mean girls, etc. Although this whole book was based around being popular, I find in real life (at least where I live) that there aren't straight and narrow popular girls. Yes, there are cliques, but no one who rules the school. Anyone who acted as wicked and cruel as the popular girls in Kiss & Blog would never actually get the chance to rule the school, because no one would want to hang around with them, except for other backstabbing "cool" girls. Aside from the fact that those certain girls chose who was popular, and when, I found the rest of the high school scene to be quite close to reality.
The blog Winter started specifically for spilling Sloane's secrets to anyone on the internet was actually one of my favourite parts to read. It was cute, imaginative, and the stories she posted were laugh-out-loud hilarious! I'd hoped there would be more of the blog pages, but unfortunately, I only got to read about one per each month of the book. That was one flaw I spotted: if Winter wrote so infrequently, who would actually check back, day after day, to see if anything new was posted? There were probably less than 10 posts in all before the end of the book, once it was outrageously famous. Why would a blog with so few short posts get so popular so quickly?
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I would give it four stars, since although not perfect, I finished it very quickly, because I never wanted to put it down! If Alyson Noël decides to write books more similar to this in the future, I might be inclined to get myself a copy. This book is perfect for anyone looking for some gossip and secrets, romance, and high school drama.
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