Lips Touch: Three Times

as always Laini Taylor did not disappoint me. I love this one... three stories .. great.

I'm not going to write a summary for this book since it was three different stories. I am going to tell you that if you don't run out and get this book right away you are missing out on something wonderful. I don't usually like short stories. I have a hard time connecting with the characters. With Lips Touch I was sucked right in with the first story and I stayed that way until the very last page. Every story in Lips Touch is beautifully unique and unlike anything I have ever read before. Laini Taylor has a way with words. She makes them sound lyical and fantastic. I was left wanting more! The world she created in the last story Hatchling is amazing. There is so much potential there to create endless novels in that world. The characters were all very well written and I felt connected to their stories and hardships. Which in my opinion is something hard to capture in a short story. As an added bonus we get to see these characters and stories brought to life with the beautiful illustrations of Jim Di Bartolo. Everything about this book is beautiful! Lips Touch is a finalist for the National Book Award and after reading it I am not surprised. This is going to be a book that people will talk about for a long time to come.

LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES by Laini Taylor can only be described as perfect. The three short stories whose common thread a kiss that alters outcomes and circumstances are like dark chocolate. Dark, haunting, passionate and delicious. In all honesty, words almost fail me. Almost. Because these stories are not only filled with lush details and vivid imagery but transport you into another world, full of old and mysterious characters with rich and colorful lore and traditions. Each story takes place in a far away land with strong and witty characters and each story has a dash of old country folklore that grips you into its clutches and no matter how hard you try you don't want to let it go. Each story is unique and captivating and as much as I want to there's no way to pick one over the other. Each word hangs on a string like tastey fruit waiting for you to devour it. And you do, because Laini's writing is brilliant! Don't believe me? See for yourself: From "Goblin Fruit" -No one else in town looked anything like her, and if she lived to womanhood, she was the one artists would want to draw, not the Sarahs and Jennys. She was the one who would someday know a dozen ways to wear a silk scarf, how to read the sky for rain and coax feral animals near how to purr throat love songs in Portuguese and Basque, how to lay a vampire to rest, how to light a cigar, how to light a man's imagination on fire. If she lived to womanhood."(p. 24) With each story you are bound to get a sexy and dark tales of love, loss, danger and life at its most fragile. This book cannot fail and any fan of fantasy would gobble each morsel and sit begging for more. And if you are not a fan of fantasy this book will surely convert you! And not to overlook how amazing the illustrations are that give a glimpse into the background stories of the characters. I was mesmerized by the beautiful drawings for a few good hours and now with my own copy I can open the book and get immersed all over again. Both stories and drawings make for a shiny package that I will want to hide from friends so it doesn't get ruined. (I'll let them have the ARC.)

Last spring, I fell in love with Laini Taylor's first novel, Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer, and its recently released follow-up, Dreamdark: Silksinger was equally wonderful. I was very excited about Lips Touch for two reasons: 1) I wanted to see what Taylor could do with a slightly different genre aimed at a slightly different age group and 2) I had hopes that a successful YA book would bring new readers to the Dreamdark series. So, what DID Taylor do with that slightly different genre? She aced it, of course. This woman can write. Period. She is a master storyteller who weaves richly detailed worlds, fully developed characters and carefully crafted plots flawlessly together, creating stories that I'm confident will prove over time to be completely unforgettable. Taylor's writing touches me in ways the writing of other authors - even very gifted authors - has not done for many, many years. [[I'm aware that I sound like a gushing fangirl, but honestly, Taylor's writing is totally gush-worthy, so I'm learning to accept that I AM a fangirl. And, with several grandkids, I really thought I was too old for any title with "girl" in it! Huh.]] Lips Touch is a trilogy of unrelated stories all of which have to do with a kiss. They are darker and more adult than the Dreamdark books and proved to be just as impossible to put down. The first, Goblin Fruit, is the shortest at only 40 pages, has the most modern feel to it and more amusing moments than the other entries. ("You could have his mouth baby!") The second, Spicy Little Curses Such as These, takes us to hell and back in more ways than one and gives us curses and sacrifice along the way. The last of the three is my favorite, the gorgeously dark Hatchling, an incredibly original tale of love and humanity and souls. It moved me to tears. All three tales have an edge to them and I found the ending of each to be perfect, if not necessarily perfectly happy. Taylor uses language beautifully, but it all seems to flow without effort. When I'm reading her stories, I never get the feeling that she is trying to hit me over the head with her talent as a wordsmith. Her descriptions, while lush and often lyrical, never cross over into the land of overblown. In my very humble opinion, she is a writer to watch, one that has a brilliant future. I'm thrilled that I've already discovered her and can watch that future unfold. Do I think Lips Touch will earn Taylor new readers that will, in turn, read her Dreamdark books? I think it will. And I couldn't be happier. They deserve to be widely read. Finally, I simply have to comment on what a visually beautiful book Lips Touch is. Taylor's husband, Jim Di Bartolo, is a gifted artist whose work is a wonderful addition to his wife's tales. Not only is he responsible for the drop dead gorgeous cover, he has lavishly illustrated each of the stories within - and with color! (So unusual!) The first two stories have 13 pages of art each, the last 15 pages. I especially app

Lips Touch was unquestionably the best fantasy I've read in years. I was blown away by the darkness, romance, and pure beauty. The language is GORGEOUS and calls to mind so many talented writers -- Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Angela Carter, Margo Lanagan -- while still being absolutely unique and original. I can't even choose a favorite of the three (romantic creepy weird exotic magical) stories, because they compliment each other brilliantly and are all perfect in their own way. (Perfect. Yes. I said it.) Jim Di Bartolo's illustrations, as always, are the ideal compliment. They have the same sumptuousness, the same edge. I wanted to lose myself in these worlds. The book's editor was the amazing Arthur Levine, of Harry Potter and His Dark Materials fame. Her editor clearly knows a fantastic book when he sees one. I won't be surprised when Lips Touch begins winning awards. I couldn't put it down, and I never wanted to end. I'd recommend this to both teen and adults -- anyone who swoons at a kiss, anyone who likes their romance with a slice of the dark side. Unforgettable.

LIPS TOUCH: THREE TIMES is a short story collection featuring supernatural tales of young love, with each selection focusing on a pivotal kiss with potentially deadly consequences. The first story, "Goblin Fruit," narrated by wry and darkly funny 16-year-old Kizzy, captures the very essence of teenage longing. Kizzy --- quiet, observant and sarcastic --- is the perpetual outsider. She believes that her life is like no other American teenager's and her family is like no one else's. Her mother wears a peasant scarf around her head, and her father wears bones in a pouch around his neck. There are numerous gypsy aunts and uncles wielding accordions and clinging to the superstitions of the Old Country. In Kizzy's backyard, cars on blocks share the space with anvils, tick-infected goats, peacocks screaming "rape" and melancholic and lonely ghosts. At school, Kizzy is not one of the popular girls. She is the one watching the pert and popular girls. In fact, it turns out she is just the kind of girl the goblins crave. When strikingly gorgeous Jack appears in Kizzy's life and shows an interest in her, Kizzy must decide whether to heed the warnings she is seemingly receiving from beyond the grave, or follow her heart. Is Jack really who he seems to be? The second story, "Spicy Little Curses Such as These," tells of two English women --- one old, one young --- living in India in the days of the British Raj. Their lives intersect tragically at the behest of a demon. Estella has been pressed into service as the human ambassador to Hell, where she must bargain daily with the demon Vasudev to save the lives of the young and innocent. After 40 years of serving as the ambassador, Estella slips up and makes a trade with Vasudev that she will regret for the rest of her days --- the lives of 22 children in exchange for a curse that she must place on a newborn girl, Anamique. Estella is required to curse Anamique with a bewitching voice that will kill all those who hear her, but she is also able to compel the girl not to talk. Anamique thus grows up in utter silence, never speaking or singing, until a kiss from a dashing stranger on her 18th birthday gives her a reason to finally test her voice. Is Anamique truly cursed, or can she find happiness with her handsome suitor? The third and final story, "Hatchling," is also the longest and --- at novella length --- complex and layered enough that it just as easily might have been shaped into a full-length novel. Esme wakes up one morning shortly before her 14th birthday to find that one of her eyes has turned from brown to icy blue overnight. The blue eye seems to belong not to her, but to a different person with other memories: memories of thrones, castles with bridges and spires, and sharing soul-searing kisses (although Esme herself has never been kissed). When Esme's mother Mab discovers her blue eye, Esme's quiet (indeed, too quiet) life erupts in chaos. Mab tells her that they are being stalked by the Druj, im