Acclaimed writer Margo Rabb's Kissing in America is 'a wonderful novel about friendship, love, travel, life, hope, poetry, intelligence, and the inner lives of girls' raves internationally bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love).
In the two years since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels to dull the pain of her loss that's still so present. Then she meets Will, who understands her grief, and her romantic fantasies become a reality. But without warning, Will moves to California. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness, Eva and her best friend decide to drive west to find Will again. As they road-trip across America, Eva and Annie encounter cowboys and tiny towns without stoplights. And along the way, they confront the complex truth about love.
In this honest and emotional journey that National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr calls 'gorgeous, funny, and joyous' readers will experience the highs of infatuation and the lows of heartache as Eva contends with love in all its forms.
Praise for Kissing in America
'Wonderful . . . Margo Rabb has created nothing less than a women's map of American mythologies, navigating from Emily Dickinson to Barbara Cartland, from the cowboys of the rodeos to the makeup studios of Hollywood, and from the bottom of the Atlantic to the spacious skies of the USA.' — E. Lockhart, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Liars
'A wonderful novel about friendship, love, travel, life, hope, poetry, intelligence and the inner lives of girls. Margo Rabb writes with compassion and clarity about lives that are worth telling, journeys that need to be taken, peace that needs to be reached. I loved it.' — Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray Love
'That Margo Rabb can write a story so gorgeous, funny, and joyous that is also unsentimental and honest is a testament to her skill and to her heart. I loved everything about Eva and the supporting cast in this beautiful novel.' — Sara Zarr, author of The Lucy Variations
'Rabb eloquently gets grief right in this compassionate, perceptive, and poignant story, deftly leavened with irreverent humor, of a girl in conflict with her mother. Wise, inspiring, and ultimately uplifting-not to be missed.' — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
'With a full cast of multidimensional characters, this novel explores the complex nature of relationships and the many faces of grief and love with equal parts humor and poignancy.' — School Library Journal
'A smart teen's novel. [The] characters are authentic and complex. Rabb knows the perfect point to interject humor to diffuse a potentially devastating situation—a leavening of sorts to the reality that death and love inexplicitly alter the landscape of a person's life.' — Booklist (starred review)
'In this indelible coming-of-age story, Rabb seamlessly weaves together multiple narratives. Sprinkled with the poetry Eva reads and writes, this story makes for a hilarious, thought-provoking, wrenching, and joyful quest.' — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
'Humor and depth . . . Often entertainingly snarky' — The Horn Book
'It is a marvel and I love every word of it: the carefully structured plot, the memorable characters, the wholly apposite style and tone. It is funny, sad, wistful, wise, and altogether memorable.' — Michael Cart
