Kiss N' Tell Blog Tour: Who I Kissed by Janet Gurtler + Guest Post

It's an honor to say that we're part of the Kiss 'N' Tell blog tour! I have always wanted to read Who I Kissed, and now I'm glad I got the chance to do so. Not only that, but check out the guest post that discusses how the media affects us nowadays! Hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Title: Who I Kissed

Author: Janet Gurtler
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Publication date: October 1st, 2012

Genre(s): Young Adult (Contemporary)

Challenges: Contemporary, SARC

Source: Publisher
Format: ARC

Pages: 312

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

She Never Thought A Kiss Could Kill. . .

Samantha is new at school and just recently joined the swim team. She’s been flirting with one of her teammates, Zee, who invites her to a party and just as quickly dumps her for another girl. Hurt, but pretending not to care, she turns to his best friend, Alex, and gives him a kiss. And he dies—right in her arms. Alex was allergic to peanuts, and Samantha had eaten a peanut butter sandwich right before the party. She didn’t know. Overnight, Samantha turns into the school pariah and a media sensation explodes. Consumed with guilt, abandoned by her friends, and in jeopardy of losing her swimming scholarship, she will have to find the inner-strength to forgive herself for the tragedy.

As soon as I saw the gorgeous cover of "Who I Kissed", I've always wanted to read it. Im a sucker for simple covers, and I'm glad that I got this chance to read it! Despite it's pretty cover, Who I Kissed had a very emotional side to it. It wasn't all boys and crushes and kisses, it was more than that. The main protagonist, Sanantha, is a competitive swimmer. She's been having this thing with one of her teammates, Zac, and things get kind of messy. When Zac invites Samantha to a party, he kind of hooks up with this other girl. In order to get at him, Samantha decides to kiss his best friend, Alex, and then he dies. It was so shocking, and it really left me mouth gaping. 

The beginning was just so interesting and full on intense! I can't say it was slow paced or fast paced either. The flow of the book was perfect, and everything just felt right. The real problem is when everyone blames Samantha for Alex's death, because she was the one who ate a peanut butter sandwich before kissing him. Alex being allergic to peanuts gets a strong allergy reaction. It's actually the first time knowing that someone can actually DIE because of an allergic reaction, and that's one thing this book opened my eyes to. It was kind of mean how everyone at school kind of avoided Samantha because of what happened. I think that's the least part I enjoyed, because I honestly don't think people would treat me that way if I was in her place. Everyone can clearly see that it was an accident, and she had no idea whatsoever that he was allergic. I'm glad that after some time, people started realizing that. I felt bad for Samantha, because the guilt she carried was huge. I really connected to her, and understood why she did whatever she did.

For me, I think I genuinely enjoyed all of the characters despite their mistakes and differences. The one thing that kind of caught me off guard was that the book was more serious that I thought it would be. I honestly thought it was going to be a romantic comedy type of book, but I enjoyed it anyhow. I really learned a lot of things regarding people with allergies, and from now on I'll be taking more caution with situations like these. I loved the writing, and I'm glad I got to be part of this tour. I can't wait to get my hands on Janet Gurtler's future books. 

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Media Crazy: In the book, Samantha is troubled with guilt and watching the news is not helping. Janet Gurtler explores the effect media can have on teens in tough situations.In the book, Who I Kissed, when a boy dies from kissing a girl who ate peanut butter, it’s a sensational death and all forms of media cover the tragedy. A peanut butter kiss and Alex is gone. It sounds almost comical, except it’s not. It’s a story that the papers and the online community want to talk about. Samantha is the girl who kissed a boy and made him die. Not only does she have to deal with her own guilt and horror, she has to deal with the worlds. All she has to do is turn on the television to see highlights and updates about what happened. 

Sam is compelled to watch and almost treats the news as her just punishment, watching and seeing snippets about the boy and his life and knowing she’s the cause of the person he’ll never become. When I wrote the book, I consulted some journalism friends to see if in a case like this whether or not the traditional forms of news coverage would name the girl who caused the death. The unanimous opinion was that, no, they wouldn’t because the death was accidental and a tragedy. 

The flip side of this world we live in today though is social media. There aren’t any hard and fast rules in place. In Sam’s world her name and the story is very much public knowledge. The teens even use social media to bully Sam. She’s taunted on Facebook and because of her overwhelming guilt, she doesn’t even try to report it or fight back. Online bullying is a problem that is becoming larger and is often difficult to manage. Sam is hurt but unable to answer to or unwilling to report or respond to it except internally.
Our society is so inundated with information coming from so many different forms of media. It seems like we expect to know the details when there’s a tragedy like a teen’s accidental death. As a public we want or the juicy behind the scenes. We’re a society growing up with reality television where we know intimate details about stranger’s lives. Teens post pictures of themselves on-line or their parents post their pictures online for the whole world to see. 

I’m sure television reporters and shows feel tremendous pressure to get something different to show a different angle of a story. The media seems much more intrusive and the public seems to support and expect it. In many ways, it’s an unhealthy sense of entitlement and a willingness to peer inside people’s windows and see things we’re not always entitled inside to see. 

We want to know everything but what is the price for the people who have to deal not only with the tragedy but also with the consequences of being so exposed in the media?
Where are ethics, and social responsibilities going when our traditional media outlets are competing against media not governed or concerned with the same moralities?

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Well, it's been fun participating in this! I want to thank Janet Gurtler for writing an amazing book, and for the amazing guest post! Thanks for stopping by!