I Kissed Shara Wheeler

“Proof that Shara does, when she’s home at night in her powder-blue room, brushing her hair and painting her nails and winding a rubber band three times around a stack of study cards, think about Chloe. And that feels a bit like winning.”

When Chloe finds that Shara’s vanilla and mint lip gloss was new and suspects Shara bought it for her, she feels flattered and happy. Because she is attracted to Shara, Chloe is, from the very beginning of the novel, intrigued by Shara and excited about the idea that Shara thinks about her. The quotation foreshadows Shara’s allusion to the song “Think of Me,” from The Phantom of the Opera, which Chloe sang during one of their school’s performances.

“What does it mean??? Shara Wheeler is the most tragic heterosexual to ever cram herself into a Brandy Melville crop top. She was obviously just screwing with me. This is mean straight girl behavior. Right???”

In the first interchapter, Chloe writes a note to her best friend, Georgia, about her kiss with Shara. The quotation reveals that Chloe assumes Shara is both straight and mean. The quotation also reveals Chloe’s conflicted mindset: although she is excited about the kiss, attracted to Shara, and intrigued as to what it could mean, she is inclined to assume the worst in others to protect herself.

“Up close, Smith Parker is…not quite as huge as Chloe thought. He’s more tapered than bulky, more like a dancer than a football player. He’s one of the few athletes Chloe considers good-looking instead of thick-necked hot-ugly: high cheekbones, striking brown eyes with sharp inner corners and arched brows, dark brown skin that somehow remains clear during football season. He’s tall, even taller than Rory. Did he grow somehow since before prom? Has he always been this square-jawed and triangle-shaped? He’s like a SAT geometry problem.”

Smith’s appearance challenges the stereotype of the typical football quarterback. Chloe compares him to an SAT geometry problem because he is puzzling in that he deviates from her expectations of him. Chloe uses a simile, “like a SAT geometry problem,” as a