Book Review: Kiss the Girl
Córdova, Zoraida. Kiss the Girl: A Meant to Be Novel. Disney Publishing Group, Hyperion Avenue, NY: 2023.
Thank you, Disney Publishing Group/Hyperion Avenue, for this free advanced reader’s copy.
This is a contemporary romance retelling of The Little Mermaid — inspired by the Disney version, not the darker original fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. Instead of mermaids singing in the sea, the sisters are a Latina music group with mermaid stage personas… and Ariel is attracted to the lead singer, Eric, of another band.
It’s a cute, light, and fun read.
Once I read the back cover copy, I remembered that the title is also a song in the Disney film.
Like Ariel in the film, Ariel in the book collects things. She has a wall of things she picked up here and there on their concert tours. I like how the book references the Disney Little Mermaid film… frequently. There’s even a stuffed toy shark. The seven sisters were in a film called The Little Mermaids. A baseball cap features a crab, and a floatation device is a crab — and it goes on. Very aquatic.
I like the headlines and such between chapters — sometimes there’s instead a review, article, or interview. Sometimes it’s a string of text messages.