Kiss & Tell was one of my most anticipated releases of 2022 and it didn't disappoint! I really loved Darius the Great is Not Okay and couldn't wait to see Khorram's first book outside of the Darius universe.
We follow Hunter Drake, a member of the teen boy band Kiss & Tell as the team heads out on its first world tour. Hunter is openly gay and supports gay charities and shelters. But, someone shares intimate text messages on Twitter and he has to deal with the consequences. He's struggling with writing songs, navigating a new boyfriend, and dealing with the opinions of the public.
I really loved that Khorram touched on topics such as sex positivity and how messy relationships could be. He also touched on how people often project stereotypes on people based on their gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. I wish Khorram did a little bit more with that (especially on the topic of ethnicity) because it would've been such an interesting (and important) topic to explore more. The band is very diverse and Hunter's love interest (Kaivan) is Iranian so it would've been great to see that connection.
The romance in the book is really cute but it's very insta-love, which I don't typically like. I wish there was more build up and I wish we saw the boys interact with each other's families more. Kaivan is in a band, which is opening for Kiss & Tell, with his two older brothers but we only meet one of the brothers for 2 seconds! They're all supposed to be on tour and we see Hunter and the single brother interact once for very little time.
I also wish we saw Hunter interact more with his mom and his sister. He's seventeen and we don't really get to see those relationships and him going to his family for help. We know his dad died, but we don't really get to hear him talk about it too much and how it affects him (and we know it does because he dedicates a song to his father at concerts).
I think this book needed 100 or even 200 more pages and it would've been perfect.
We follow Hunter Drake, a member of the teen boy band Kiss & Tell as the team heads out on its first world tour. Hunter is openly gay and supports gay charities and shelters. But, someone shares intimate text messages on Twitter and he has to deal with the consequences. He's struggling with writing songs, navigating a new boyfriend, and dealing with the opinions of the public.
I really loved that Khorram touched on topics such as sex positivity and how messy relationships could be. He also touched on how people often project stereotypes on people based on their gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. I wish Khorram did a little bit more with that (especially on the topic of ethnicity) because it would've been such an interesting (and important) topic to explore more. The band is very diverse and Hunter's love interest (Kaivan) is Iranian so it would've been great to see that connection.
The romance in the book is really cute but it's very insta-love, which I don't typically like. I wish there was more build up and I wish we saw the boys interact with each other's families more. Kaivan is in a band, which is opening for Kiss & Tell, with his two older brothers but we only meet one of the brothers for 2 seconds! They're all supposed to be on tour and we see Hunter and the single brother interact once for very little time.
I also wish we saw Hunter interact more with his mom and his sister. He's seventeen and we don't really get to see those relationships and him going to his family for help. We know his dad died, but we don't really get to hear him talk about it too much and how it affects him (and we know it does because he dedicates a song to his father at concerts).
I think this book needed 100 or even 200 more pages and it would've been perfect.