Kissing in America

A must-read for fans of Jenny Han! 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—118 of them, to be exact—to dull the pain of her loss that’s still so present. Her romantic fantasies become a reality when she meets Will, who can relate to Eva’s grief. Unfortunately, after Eva falls head-over-heels for him, he picks up and moves to California with barely any warning. Not wanting to lose the only person who has been able to pull her out of sadness—and, perhaps, her first shot at real love—Eva and her best friend, Annie, concoct a plan for a cross-country road trip to the west coast. As they travel across America, Eva and Annie confront the complex truth about love in this heartfelt coming of age story.

In this honest and emotional young adult fiction 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 of its forms.

Since publication, this novel received 4 starred reviews and has been named:

• A Chicago Public Library Best Teen Book of the Year
• A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens
• A Miami Herald Best Book of the Year
• A Spirit of Texas selection
• A TAYSHAS High School Reading List Selection
• An Oprah Summer Reading List selection
• A Junior Library Guild selection
• An Amazon Best Book of the Month
• A Publisher’s Lunch Buzz Book for Young Adults

“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

“Kissing in America is a wonderful novel about friendship, love, travel, life, hope, poetry, intelligence and the inner lives of girls—all the things, to put it simply, that I like best in a book. 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

“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

“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)

“It made me laugh until I choked, and it made me cry-it’s a book that made my heart feel full.” - Leila Roy, Kirkus Reviews Blog

“[A] well-balanced read that exposes readers to weighty ideas and difficult feelings while keeping them entertained and emotionally invested.” - Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

“Rabb’s coming-of-age story has a sweep as wide as the star-spangled sky. [Her] snapshots of America are witty and perceptive and appropriately poetic. There’s not just one love story in Kissing in America, there are many. - Austin Chronicle

“Rabb’s coming-of-age story has a sweep as wide as the star-spangled sky...Rabb’s snapshots of America are witty and perceptive and appropriately poetic for a narrative so consumed with the comforts of poetry and the personal risk that comes from trying to express one’s self creatively. (Eva is a budding poet.) What’s most striking is Rabb’s compassion for her characters. Without ever losing Eva’s perspective, Rabb presents an empathetic, rounded portrait of so many women and girls who are influential in her life. There’s not just one love story in Kissing in America, there are many - between mothers and daughters and lifelong best friends—and they’re all stories worth telling.” - Austin Chronicle

“Kissing in America” is a road-trip story with humor and heart. - Boston Globe

“This feminist rom-com reminds us it’s never about the boy but the joyride.” - O Magazine

“Tender, expansive . . . Eva is a likable, sympathetic character whose horizons expand literally —during a New York-to-L.A. bus trip with a friend—and metaphorically.” - Chicago Tribune

“Rabb’s funny and big-hearted second novel is bursting with resonant themes of love, death, family, art and identity, fully embodied in a diverse cast of wonderfully fallible and entertaining characters.” - New York Times Book Review

“Margo Rabb plumbs the complications of friendships and family in “Kissing in America,” a young-adult novel that also deftly weaves humor and snippets of poetry into its road-trip story. A beautifully crafted coming-of-age story that illuminates the layers of relationships through Eva and Annie’s adventures on the road.” - Austin Statesman

“A young-adult novel that deftly weaves humor and snippets of poetry into its road-trip story. A beautifully crafted coming-of-age story that illuminates the layers of relationships.” - Austin Statesman

“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

“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

“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