Once upon a Kiss

Gr 6–10—This eager, time-traveling tome is a homage to John Hughes mixed with elements of movies, such as Back to the Future and The Breakfast Club, that paint a vivid picture of the 1980s. In a twist, the novel starts in 1986 and takes the main character, Zoe, an unpopular teen, on a time-traveling journey to 2016, where she is the most popular girl in school. Like a character in any Hughes flick, Zoe has a quirky guy best friend, Jordan, and a popular boyfriend, Brad, and is focused on exploring the stereotypical groups that exist within a high school. Zoe must decide whether her newfound popularity is worth sacrificing her values, opinions, and dream to unite all of the differing groups within the high school community. Should she give up her queen bee status and her popular paramour to fulfill her dreams of a united student body and a romantic partner who shares her beliefs? The idealistic tone of the book is reminiscent of a sitcom. With the exception of Zoe, Jordan, and Brad, almost all of the other characters are one-dimensional, seeming to exist merely to point out something about the major characters or drive the familiar plot forward. There is no new ground explored here; this is simply a tame romance with a time-travel twist.