Hello and happy Sunday. One of my goals for this year is to read more books from my TBR (duh) and to go over the lists of ‘challenges’ I’ve started throughout the years. Sunkissed by Kasie West fits into both categories.

This is a young adult contemporary romance novel, and I’ve told you how I feel about this author’s YA contemporary romances, but this is different. It feels like she did not follow the usual formula, and it worked. Now, the fact that I am not the target demographic still applies, but this novel was enjoyable and though there are several stories out there about the summer, this had enough elements to feel unique.

The focus was on the main character and her development as an individual with thoughts and interests of her own, rather than her getting together with the love interest, so that was refreshing. I actually think that the reason why this novel worked was because we didn’t really need a romance for the plot to be engaging, and I think that’s how an author knows that they’ve written a successful novel.