First Kisses 1: Trust Me Review

First Kisses 1: Trust Me By Rachel Hawthorne

14 years old Jessica "Jess" Kane, and her best friend, Elizabeth "Liz" Stewart has spent their last 4 years of summer going to Camp Lone Star. But this year they are counselors, not just campers. They wanted to be counselors so they can give orders and hope that the boys notice them. But one thing she doesn´t hope is that Sean Reed a boy who also attends the camp is here this year, because he has a thing of making Jess´s life miserable, he is her number 1 enemy. He cheated last year in a flag game that was going on at camp, he make Jess and her friends believe there were bears outside their dorm and many other things. But to be fair she has also always been attractive to Sean and that is not good.
But first they have to get their one week leadership boot camp (CIT), before the 3 week camp. So thats were they are now at the dorm getting dressed for their official camp meeting. The clothe is so different/boring/not cool from last year that Jess says they should do a little prepping before heading for the meeting. After on the way to the meeting they catch up with the girls they shared a dorm with last year: Caryn and Torie. They talk until the adults calls their attendtion and that is when she notice him Sean, in training as a CIT like her. The adults in charge is pairing people up but Jess is lost in her own thoughts until Liz tells her that they are pairing people and not making sure who are there or not so she can take her hand down. They pair up because they have too and this week is about trusting your partner, but Jess do so not trust him. They have to do the whole turn around and let your partner catch you kind of thing. And Jess is the one who are suppose to fall, but she just turns around saying she isn´t playing the game and then he out of nowhere falls and she catches him and dumbs him on the ground and make fun of her not being strong.

At lunch she complain to her friends, but they seem to think that Sean has changed his whole attitude but he also looks a lot older. But when she is done with lunch Edna, one of the 2 adults call her to her and tells her that her and Sean are doing dishwasher detail tonight for punisment. After they are doing a new exercise, but it suprises Jess to see that he is smilling and isn´t upset about the punisment. The nex exercise is that they have to stare into each others eyes until the teacher says stop and Jess makes it. Then they have to take a step closer and take each others hands and look into each others eyes, and Sean says her eyes are pretty and he says they can concentrate on something else while giving each other compliments, but Jess is so not doing that. Then they are done, but Liz doesn´t seem to want to get out of there as she is completly baffled by her boy partner. They fins out that they are sharing the dorm with Torie and Caryn. Latter they eat dinner and after her and Sean has too wash the dishes. She can´t understand why Sean is so happy or what kind of game he is playing or when he is going to strike. They get onto a water fight, but is stopped by one of the adults. After when she comes back to the cabin and has gone to bed Liz informs her that they are going out to meet the other CIT´s and Jess doesn´t want to be left alone so she goes with them. They meet the 4 other guys in the woods Trent, Liz partner. Jon, Caryn partner. Jet, Torie partner and of course Sean. they go out in the woods and explain that the reason they wanted to meet was to get to know each other. But Jess quickly get tired of it when Sean suggest they do a game of trust or dare and she goes back.

The next day they have to as a exercise bind a rope around one of your partners ancles and one around your own so you have too walk together. It goes pretty good until she falls because he ask her about her family. Then he helps her up but they fall again when he makes fun of her painting her toenail red 4 summers ago and then when she fall on top up him he sees the tears in her eyes and starts to make fun, until she tells him he is a jerk and that she did it because her grandma did it and she had just died that summer. When he calls her Jess she says that only her friends get to call her that and he says they are going to be friends before the end of summer. Before the sun goes up the next morning Jess goes down to the lake and thinks about the platform in the middel of the lake where a red banner is Legend had it that before summer camp officially began, the most courageous counselor would be the first to brave the chilly water of the lake, swim out to the platform, and
get the red banner and the person would become special. Suddenly she hears something spin around and Sean is there and he tells her he is going for the banner and decide to race for it just not today. Later they do a exercise more and it starts to rain so they get to take their normal clothe on and are suppose to meet at the activity house and they do an exercise in teams with 5 things to have with you on a island if you are stranded. By thursday the team (Sean, Trent, Jess and Liz) are sitting together eating and Sean tells her some personal stuff about his family.

Later it is time for a survival trip and they get paired up with their partner again and in this exercise the one partner is suppose to put a bandana around the other partners eyes and get the person with the bandana home. And if you are team 8 like Sean and Jess you are going to be let farther out the forest before the exercise begins. Sean tells Jess to take the bandana on because she didn´t pay attention to were they where going but he did. Later they are lost and he didn´t try to get her too help. They build a fire and tries to climb a tree to see if they can see the camp but they cant. He also tells her that the reason he four years ago put a snake in her bed was to get her to notice him because he thought she was cute and she admits that she thought he was cute too. The next morning Jess remembers somethig from last summer and she is sure that it was Billy, Sean little brother, that cheated in the flag game and Sean just told that it was him. So she ask hi when he wakes and he admits it is true. He tells her that he took the blame so that his brother wouldn´t be send home, because he had pulled some other stuff on camp that summer too. They remember that Jess took pictures on the forest when they went out here and they figute they can just follow the pictures and get back, because right now they are where Ed the other adult left them. They stop sometime to rest and jess tells him she can´t understand why he could get lost and he tells her he wasn´t in a hurry to get back to camp because then he couldn´t spend time with her. He also admits that he has a crush on someone. They suddenly comes to something that looks familiar and Liz comes up hugging her and says that Edna said that they were okay because Ed was wth them and Sean and Jess is totally confused. But then Ed shows up behind them and they find out they were never lost and that he didn´t reveal himself because they needed to trust each other and they do now. The next morning Jess goes down to the lake and Sean comes and he tells her that it would prove something if they got it together. He ask if she trust him, she says yes, he say close your eyes and when she does he kisses her. He then tells her they can race and they quickly take their clothe of down to their swim clothe, hold hand and jump in the lake.

This was a cute, sweet, sometimes fun, but very short book about friendship, first kisses and dealing with it all. The book was maybe a little to yong for me, but i enjoyed it anyway. But i will read some of the other books in this series.



Grade: 7-10