Kissing Vanessa

Kissing Vanessa

Author: Simon Cheshire

Publisher: Random House (2003)

ISBN: 0440238943

2 (out of 5) STARS

Summary: Kevin Watts falls in love with Vanessa the second he sees her walk into his French class. But Kevin is just an average guy, how can he win Vanessa?

Review: Kevin Watts has high hopes of doing amazingly well in school this semester. He is tired of hearing about how he has great potential. He is going to do something about it. But then his best plans are foiled when Vanessa enters his French class. It is love at first sight. All Kevin does is think about Vanessa and how he can get her to notice him.

Kevin approaches his best friend Jack who is a “babe magnet.” Jack has created a manual for dealing with girls entitled Girlfriend Management the Easy Way. The lessons are as follows:

Lesson one: Attracting girls isn’t as hard as you think
Lesson Two: Girls respect cool trousers
Lesson three: play hard to get – it drives them wild
Lesson four: presents they will like
Lesson five: girls like sports (whatever they might say)
Lesson six: how to take your girlfriend on the perfect date
Lesson seven: never spend much time together-keep her guessing
Lesson eight: how to ditch the chick (sensitively)
Lesson nine: My life as a school heartthrob

Jack’s handbook works great for him, but not so great for Kevin.

I did not dislike this book, but it really was not all that great. Everything that could possibly go wrong for Kevin did. Some books where the characters get themselves into crazy situations are funny, but this one was not. It was just sad. It was good for me to read a romance genre book, but I did not love it.