Review: Lips Touch:Three Times by Laini Taylor

Title: Lips Touch:Three Times

Author: Laini Taylor
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Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The book Depository

Meet the autor: Goodreads,  Offical Blog

My ratings:

Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls:

Goblin Fruit
In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses
A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling
Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?

 

 

I have been putting of on reading this book for a while. And every time i actually get up t reading it something else happens that takes may attention away.

But I'm glad i preserved this time, it was the best 2 hours of my life.

The cover is amazing, i have to confess that to me a  good book cover is very important (yeah, i judge a book by its cover, s what!) it shows that the author is very proud of his work and has a clear idea where the books is going.

This book cover and the illustrations inside are made by Jim Di Bartolo (also the authors husband)and they are a thing of beauty!

Goblin Fruit:

"Kizzy wanted it all so bad her soul leaned half out of her body hungering after it, and that was what drove the goblins wild, her soul hanging out there like an untucked shirt.” 

A young woman from a Old World gypsy family living in a small town America wishes she could wake up and be someone else
Her yearning is so palpable that it leaves a trail that, attracts attention from goblins.
I enjoyed reading this story. The tension and the pace was very rushed and the anxiety i felt whilst turning page after page was very high. Kizzys raw emotions and the thoughts she portray'd felt very realistic, it was easy to get into it.
The thing i liked most where descriptions of gypsy culture and customs, as well as the snarky witty banter that went on between Kizzy and her friends. Even the sassiness of her grandma.
The author managed to combine Modern day teenage angst with Old World culture and mix in the supernatural element. She skillfully played do that part in all of us that is doubtful and at times wishes to be someone else.

Spicy Little Curses:

“This is the story of the curse and the kiss, the demon and the girl. It's a love story with dancing and death in it, and singing and souls and shadows reeled out on kite strings.”
 

Anamique is young woman, who was cursed to silence, for one word from her mouth would kill everyone around her. Growing up she never questions it therefore never uttering a sound until the arrival of a British soldier questions her beliefs and starts eroding her trust.

The plot of this story is around the time when India was British Raj.

A human woman and a demon united to keep the balance of the world. Cruel game and a skillful blackmail gets baby Anamique stuck with a curse that could kill anyone at the first sound of her voice.

The story was enticing the elements of Hinduism and the British absence of faith where greatly portrayed. It felt as i was there and could feel, sense and smell everything the characters have.

The tension of the story was not high strung from the beginning, rather it build up slowly until it reached a boiling point.

I liked the characters and there where several main ones aside from Anamique, who was the center the plot revolved around. The ending was exceptional, neatly summed up and nicely packaged. Actions have consequences and karma is gonna come back to bite you in the ass.

Hatchling:

“Is that all souls are for? For when we die?"
"No. They're for living, too.” 
 

Wolf howls. Young Esme wakes up with a blue eye. And everything her mother carefully  build up starts caving around them. Now Esme has questions and something is following them something blue eyed, fanged and deadly.

Last story also the longest. It's told from several points of view, i didn't like it as much as the first two.  Maybe I'm just a sucker for happy endings.

The theme that followed the whole story was greed, and it sucks you in and drains you. Everyone was greedy and by the end i felt sorry for the mother. Everyone got a "happy" ending except her who, maybe deserved it the most.

What i disliked the most was probably Esme's behavior towards her mother. Even trough she is just a child i felt she could have handled it differently.

But the unbelievable magic that enveloped the first two stories was still there. You get sucked in it weather you want it or not.

LainiTaylor is a master of words, and it shows best on short stories like these. Her ability to portray raw emotions of yearning, desperation, love and greed are on an entirely different level then anything Ive had read in quite a while.
This is one of those rare book that you enjoy simply because of the beauty and the skillfulness of words.
Read it slowly. Savor it. Let it envelop you. Feel it.