Review: The Kiss Test by Shannon McKelden

Description:

Margo Gentry's life is perfect. She loves her job as a DJ for Manhattan's only country music station, and she has a great boyfriend who accepts her need to avoid marriage and tolerates her Elvis obsession-even the velvet Elvis painting in their bedroom.

But then it all falls apart. The radio station changes formats and fires all the DJs. Margo's boyfriend decides he wants kids and a house in the suburbs and kicks her to the curb. And to top it all off, her Mom is getting married-for the 11th time! -and expects Margo to be there as maid of honor.

With no job and no place to live, Margo has to bunk on the couch of her best friend, Chris, whose revolving bedroom door has played host to half the women in New York-at least, the ones who pass his "kiss test." Worse, he's insisting she attend her mother's wedding, and he's personally driving her cross-country to ensure she shows up.

Forget about surviving the road trip-can their friendship survive The Kiss Test?

Review:
I really hoped I would like this book but unfortunately I couldn't. I just had too many problems with the characters and how the story unfolded.  The first few pages I liked the heroine and everything sounded really promising but after the first chapter this book lost me.

Margo is an independant woman living in NYC. She's working as the morning DJ at a Country radio station and loves her life the way it is. A great job, a boyfriend who likes their relationship the easy way it is without any marriage and kids plans in their future. But it gets even better- she wins an award for best country DJ in the US and she can't believe how lucky she is. But then everything starts to crack and she's left with nothing besides her love for Elvis and her best friend Chris. I think that's the way the author wanted the heroine to be seen, but for me she was more like a self centered child at times. She seemed to be unaware of how other people see her or feel about her. Margo has definietely too much denial in herself for me. She always wanted to be seen as independant and strong, but for me her fears of accepting anyone else to help her or show her any kindness made her not very likable. She was sometimes even a bit TSTL for me. Some things were so obvious and she didn't see them coming at all. I wanted to slap her silly.

Then we have Chris. He's a heart-breaker and full of charm. He has this certain appeal that gives woman this mushy and warm feeling inside and makes them forget everything else in their lives. He likes sports to the extreme and has the body to prove it. I actually liked him sometimes. He was fun and witty and yeah at some points he would have won my heart.. But on other occasions I thought WTF is that guy thinking. In the middle of the book he lost all his hero appeal for me with this one huge fiasco he produced out of nowhere.

The story was okay. I liked the idea of the roadtrip but some things happened I just couldn't accept at all. It's hard to say what I didn't like without spoiling the book, so that's why I'm all mysterious here. I didn't like how the characters acted, they did really stupid things,  in my opinion. Things I would have never been able to forgive a friend. And yes I think that makes me prude and closed-minded but that's the way I am. I personally have mostly male friends and never onces would they have even thought about doing something like the hero did in this book. For me it felt like the totally betrayal of his "best" friend- the one person in his life who's always there. It feel like I ranted about this for hours. (thanks Caro for listening to my bitching). Also at the end where some revelations who were just too easy for me and some were even unbelievable. But I won't start about this now or this review will never end.

Ms. McKelden's writing is really good though. It has a good flow and I think it was one of the reasons I didn't give up on this book. It compelled me to keep going and I couldn't stop- even when I thought about throwing the book at the wall.

I would have actually liked this book if there weren't the problems with our main couple. I think this book hit all my pet peeves (okay nearly all). I know many reviewers loved this book, I think I'm just not made for this kind of story.
 
To learn more about Shannon and her books please visit her website here.
Other Reviews:
- Sabrina @About Happy Books 5 out of 5 stars
- @Goodreads

Purchase the book @Carina Press