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Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World (review)

In If We Kiss (BCCB 5/05) Charlotte “Charlie” Collins fell for Kevin Lazarus, fell out with her best friend, Tess (who had been going out with Kevin), and fell into the extreme awkwardness of having her crush become her stepbrother. Now fourteen-year-old Charlie is trying to balance the adjustment to having Kevin, his father, and his sister in her house with the electricity she feels whenever she sees Kevin—and the kissing they do whenever they have a chance. Can they make both their relationship and their family situation work? It’s not surprising that ultimately the relationship has to go, but it’s an awful lot of fun while it lasts, with Charlie dissolving into the bliss of an exciting secret (even a parent-mandated trip to the laundry room with Kevin is an opportunity for delicious flirtation) and good reciprocal kissing. Vail situates this story in plausible reality, keeping her characters believably complicated; Charlie in particular is a touching and relatable girl, especially in her self-consciousness around Kevin (“How to breathe normally? No memory of the technique,” she frantically thinks to herself mid-conversation). Charlie and Kevin’s ultimate realization that this romance thing isn’t working is maturely but credibly arrived at, and wistful readers can at least have the solace of turning back to delve again into some of the year’s most epic kissing passages. DS