Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

It took me awhile to warm up to this book. I'd seen it a lot around the blogosphere, and people seemed to be really enthusiastic about it. At first, though, I thought it was part of a series. No, really - I thought maybe it had gone Lips Touch, Lips Touch: Twice, and now Lips Touch: Three Times. I was relieved to find out that that was not, in fact, the case, and I was free to pick it up.

I'm not a huge fantasy/supernatural reader, so reading this sort of took me outside my comfort zone. Having said that, the stories were so strongly written that they held my interest, and I was drawn in to the stories and characters.

Lips Touch: Three Times is a collection of three stories, each centering around a kiss. In the first story, a high school outcast is attracted to a new, dangerous boy in school, a boy who seems to be attracted to her as well. The second one features a terrible curse placed on a little girl that says she will have the most beautiful voice in the world, but that anyone who hears her voice will die. The third involves the story of a queen who keeps human children as pets, and a young teenage girl just discovering information about her mother's fast - and her own future.

The stories get progressively longer, which is good, because it gave me a chance to ease into the book. All of them deal with supernatural elements: goblins, lost souls, curses demons, shapeshifting, magical powers. It was a lot easier to understand than I thought it would be. I think my favourite story is the middle one, the one about the curse. The stories focus around a kiss, but there's so many more elements to think about: the thin line between life and death, forces of good and evil, the relationship between humans and animals, the influence that relatives and ancestors have on later generations, what it means to have the power of speech.

Once I got into the book, I also really appreciated Jim Di Bartolo's illustrations. Several show up at the beginning of a story, hinting of elements to come; another follows the conclusion of a story, neatly bookending it with beautiful pictures. I think this is a very strong book that works both for fans of supernatural stories as well as people like me who might be more reluctant to pick up a book with goblins and demons.

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
How They Met And Other Stories by David Levithan
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

I got this book: from the library.