I Kissed Shara Wheeler

McQuiston is known for their New York Times best-selling romantic comedies Red, White & Royal Blue and One Last Stop. I Kissed Shara Wheeler is their first young adult novel. McQuiston was born and raised in Southern Louisiana and now lives in New York City. As a nonbinary person, McQuiston uses the pronouns they and them.

McQuiston’s debut young adult novel explores coming-of-age themes of identity, rebellion, and maturity while also fostering awareness of diverse sexual and gender identities. The novel is set in False Beach, Alabama, a rural and upscale town in the Bible Belt with a conservative Christian demographic like the community in which McQuiston was raised. Chloe and the other high-school students in the novel attend Willowgrove Christian Academy, at which students who are not straight and cisgendered are met with shame and punishment. In the Acknowledgements for the novel, McQuiston writes, “I know intimately that the Bible Belt contains some of the best, warmest, weirdest, queerest kids you’ll ever meet, whether or not they even know that last part yet. If you’re one of those kids, I wanted this book to exist for you” (353). McQuiston writes to these young queer people, “You deserve ridiculous, over-the-top high school rom-coms about teenagers like you, just like the straight kids have!” (353).