Fall 2021: Wild Readers Group 5 discussion

For my second book, I chose Kissed by an Angel by Elizabeth Chandler. This book starts with a lot of jumping from current moments, back to things that had happened in the past. This was really confusing for me at first because I couldn’t figure out where exactly the story was going. I also read this book on a Kindle and I discovered that is not my style, I need the page turner affect. Regardless, this story was romantic, very sweet and heartbreaking all at the same time. Ivy, one of the main characters, is a 17 year old girl who has a love for angels. Early in Ivy’s life, she has a traumatic experience which led her to believe she was saved by a guardian angel. Tristan is Ivy’s boyfriend who tragically passes away after they were in suspicious car accident. This happens right off the bat and I love a good reason to grab my attention. We then learn about how Tristan and Ivy met prior to the accident. Tristan had an eye for Ivy from the first time he saw her when she started at her new school. Ivy is really naive and Tristan is desperate to get her attention. After constant efforts from Tristan and everyone trying to tell Ivy how “into her” he was, Ivy finally starts to see the connection. They fall in love and become very best friends. So, after Tristan dies he is given a mission but is not told what the mission is for. Ivy is grieving terribly. It’s was heartbreaking to read how devastated she was, being that she had survived and he hadn’t. There was so much confusion as she tries to move forward with her life. Finally, Tristan believes he is meant to tell Ivy how much he loved her but struggles with communicating. Another guardian angel that is a “more experienced angel” for lack of better terms, (she’s been dead longer) tries to help Tristan communicate with Ivy. This story is a trilogy so I image the next book will be about how Tristan is able to communicate his love for Ivy. I thought that the book was great at capturing my attention right off the bat with the car accident, but I felt like the book was a bit too phony. Although the story was very sweet, it had parts that drug on for too long for me. But I would recommend this story to teens-I’m sure I would have been wildly captivated as a 17 year old reading this book.