This is quite a good book dealing with cyber bullying, sexting and self-worth for younger teens. "Never Been Kissed" is an easy read, but the characters are rather one dimensional and uninteresting and the dialogue is not always believable. However, the warning is an important one for today's youth. ( )

Suitable for the 12-14 crowd. Don't be swayed by the title... it's actually a fairly solid story about "sexting" and the dangers of cell phones. Reaffirmed my decision not to have one and certainly not to put one in the hands of someone who can't drive and doesn't have a job due to age. ( )

About the Book: Elise will be starting her junior year of high school in a few weeks, and she is not looking forward to it. Her single mom has taken a new job and she had to move to another town - so she is starting at a new school. The only person she knows is a somewhat geeky freshman, Stacie, that lives in the same apartment building as her.

Going to stay at Grandma's, in her old town, the week before school starts proves somewhat fortuitous. She meets Asher Gordon through an old friend who is dating his cousin. Asher is also a student at Elise's new school. While it is made clear that he has a girlfriend, Elise is just hopeful that he will say hello to her if they run into each other.

Well, Asher does more than that - he befriends Elise on that first day and introduces her to his "A-list" friends - including his girlfriend Brianna. While Elise is avoiding Stacie after school, she runs into Asher who offers her a ride home. They stop off for coffee and Elise thinks her first day couldn't have gone any better. However, the next day at school she gets the big freeze from her new friends. She was seen having coffee with Asher and immediately everyone thinks she is after him. So much for her great first day.

Elise soon gets an email from Asher. He wants her to play that they do not get along so that he can break up with Brianna. He just doesn't want Brianna to blame her and give her a hard time all year. Elise is pretty excited and agrees to play along. As their relationship progresses through email, she become somewhat confused about his behavior towards her at school. While he tells her in email to just play along a little while longer, sometimes he acts at school like he wants to be friends.

Before Elise knows what hit her, she is arrested for something she didn't do and the whole school is laughing at her. Even her mom thinks she is guilty. During her darkest hour, she realizes that the only one she is going to be able to count on to get her through is God, and starts to try to figure out who set her up.

My thoughts: Great book for teens and tweens about the dangers of the internet and cyber bullying - among other things. I don't want to tell you the big twist, but it made me sit down and talk with my teens. I don't think that I have read a Melody Carlson book that didn't have some lesson in it that put things in perspective for teens without preaching at them. Highly recommend for any teen that has a MySpace or Facebook page or spends any amount of time online or texting! ( )

Melody Carlson is AWESOME! She writes from the heart, and she writes for the teens. I love her work, both her adult books and her YA novels. And, this Never Been Kissed novel is by far the best one by her yet. She takes a combination of YA issues, sexting (child pornography), suicide, trusting in God, lies,being popular, bullying and boys and raps them up into one incredible, major impacting novel that will help ANY young lady through any number of issues.

Meeting Elise was a fun experience. What happened to her-I won't go into major detail for fear of spoilers!- wasn't fun, but seeing the strong, tender hearted young woman who was dealing with MAJOR issues, issues that 16 year olds should NOT have to go through, I felt like her big sister. I prayed for her through this story and became quite up set with some of the other characters in this book. But, through Melody Carlson, she HAD to have those characters along side her or this story wouldn't be worth reading, and wouldn't have the same impact on young adults.

This is a novel that I think should have more than 5 stars for it's powerful, powerful messages. It's PERFECT for EVERY young lady in high school to show how serious the issues I mentioned really are. Reality meets fiction in this HIGHLY recommended young adult novel and if you have a teen aged girl who loves to read in your life, then please, don't hesitate to get this book for her. She will not only learn a lesson, but will fall in love with Melody Carlson's work, as Carlson puts God as the center of EVERY book but yet hits home with real life issues in teens. ( )

Never Been Kissed is a very interesting YA novel. Like Anything But Normal that came out last year, it has a very important message to teenagers. In fact it's one I haven't even thought about but will now make sure my boys understand what to do and what not to do when sending emails, facebook and text messages (if I ever get them cell phones, they are only 5 and 10 now).

While dealing with a powerful subject the book also feels real. What girl who is about to turn 16 hasn't embellished a little bit about that first kiss if they haven't had it. What girl is not trying to fit in with an "in-crowd" and what girl hasn't told lies to make herself seem better. Poor Elise gets caught up in something over her head, but I like how Ms. Carlson showed just how she dealt with it, from making mistakes along the way to making apologies where necessary.

I enjoyed watching Elise grow as a character. She starts the book as a typical teenager, not a care in the world besides fitting in and getting kissed, but she ends the book learning valuable lessons and going forth from there on with her life. Ms. Carlson has a way with creating characters that feel real and feel like the every-girl and Elise is a great example of this.

Never Been Kissed is a quick read, but one that will stick with you for awhile. I can see appeal in this book for people of all ages. Great for teens, great for parents, great for all those in-between. Never Been Kissed has a lesson for all of us in this information age and is packaged in a very entertaining way. ( )