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Title: Lips Touch: Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5
Why I Read It: This book was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award.
Summary: Three stories, each about a different girl and a kiss. And no ordinary kiss, either. These kisses carry a dangerous promise to forever change the girls’ lives.
Review: I must read more by this author. Soon after I started this book, I was jotting down page numbers of quotes left and right. When I hit page 100 and had filled up an entire post-it with page numbers, I decided I’ll just have to reread this someday.
These stories are weird, but deliciously so. They reminded me of Pretty Monsters, which I also loved.
The only reason this book didn’t get 5 stars from me is that the ending of the first story let me down a bit. I wanted more conclusion, but I don’t read many short stories so I’m probably just not calibrated for them.
Here’s a taste for you from the first story about a girl named Kizzy whose grandmother has just passed away:
Sometimes Kizzy imagined her grandmother knife-fighting her way down the long tunnel of death, but mostly her daydreams were of a very different nature. She daydreamed of slow-dancing with Mike Crespain and of sitting on his lap at lunch while he hugged her around the waist instead of Sarah Ferris, his knuckles resting lightly against the underside of her breasts instead of Sarah’s. She daydreamed about having slim ankles like Jenny Glass instead of peasant ankles like the fetlocks of a draft horse. About smooth hair instead of coarse hair, sleek hips instead of belly dancer’s hips. About a tinkling laugh, and a butterfly tattoo, and a boy who would tuck his hand into her back pocket while they walked, and press her up against a fence to suck her lower lip like a globe of fruit.
That’s hot. The next paragraph is even better, but I would’ve had to give you more background to the story.
So go read it for yourself!
Your Turn: What’s the last book you read where you found yourself jotting down a ton of quotes?
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