My Last Kiss

by Bethany Neal

• ISBN10: 1250063000
• ISBN13: 9781250063007
• Publish Date: 16 June 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Square Fish
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

When I decided to take part in Book Sparks Summer Reading Challenge, it was such a good decision even if I do say so myself! There’s lots of wonderful books being read over the summer, many in genres I only read sporadically and next up was one of the July picks, My Last Kiss. I’ve been staring at the cover ever since I dowloaded it from Netgalley (it’s such a pretty, clever cover). I was very excited to read it, and it wasn’t really the novel I expected; I should have read the synopsis beforehand, I loved the idea of a thriller novel, but I didn’t know it was also a ghost story!

My Last Kiss’s blurb tells me that it’s a thriller, a who-dun-it and although it IS a who-dun-it, it wasn’t very thrilling at all. It was too slow-paced to be a true thriller, and the novel just seems to bump along at its own pace and I just wanted more from the novel. I’m literally sitting writing my review and I can’t remember the lead characters name and that’s just awful for me to admit. I’ve just had to look it up; her name is Cassidy! My problem with the whole thriller aspect is that fingers are pointed at every one – it was almost like a process of elimination and everyone seemed, at one point, to be the last person to see Cassi alive. It got to the point where so many suspicions were flying – false accusations, yelling and screaming, and I don’t know how a group of friends come back from so much recriminations. Everyone had a secret, and the shocks just came but they weren’t shocking enough.

The trouble is the novel jumps around a lot in the beginning – instead of opening with Cassi’s fall from the bridge, instead it opens cold as she realises she’s a ghost and from there she ghostports place to place and my head was spinning because I didn’t know where anywhere was. Also Cassi was hardly sweet and innocent, she cultivates that persona but all of her actions are so sneaky and while she tries to explain it away, what she does to Ethan is unexplainable. She mentions a lot that she and Ethan “aren’t what they were” but we were never SHOWN their relationship at all, except their first kiss and the whole Ethan-can-see-Cassi-as-a-ghost thing. I’d have liked the novel more if it had made more sense – if we got to see Cassi and Ethan, two people seemingly perfect for each other, if we knew why Cassi’s friends were happily throwing suspicion around – I just found it quite hard to believe the cops would just rule Cassi’s death a suicide without an investigation, that didn’t make sense suicide note or no suicide note.

I ended up skim-reading the last half of the novel, if not more. The concept was interesting but it wasn’t very well executed at all and the beginning of the novel throws you in the deep end with no rhyme or reason. The characters weren’t charactes I cared for because they lied, they kept secrets, they just didn’t act the way friends should act with each other and there were too many recriminations. I was super disappointed – I wanted to love the book (I want to love ALL the books I read) and I just didn’t, which was a shame. I’m glad I read it because it did sound fascinating, it just didn’t live up to my expectations (or its own, let’s be honest), a thriller should thrill you and keep you on the edge of your seat and My Last Kiss didn’t do that at all, sadly.

[bookishzelda]

My Last Kiss was pretty addicting, especially in the beginning. We have Cassidy who is a ghost and we start off the book with her looking at her dead body. She knows that something must have happened to her but she is missing big chunks of memory from the last 3 weeks before her death. She realizes that she must be a ghost for unfinished business reason but not exactly sure what that is.

The book revolves around the mystery of Cassidy’s plunge off the bridge behind her best friends house. The thing I liked about it was the complexity. It was a gradual progression. It seemed like everything was so simple but then things kept getting more and more complicated as Cassidy pieced together the clues. Although I figured out parts before the end of the book, I loved how the subtle hints were laid throughout. Things that Cassidy didn’t catch on to in life, but seemed to understand more in death. Towards the end I did feel like things were coming at me fast and it was hard to keep straight who was where and when. I wouldn’t have minded some of that being peppered in a bit more earlier. I can also see how the fear might be to give too much away too early. It’s hard when you write a mystery. The writing kept me interested in finding out what was going to happen next. I needed to know how all of the pieces of Cassidy’s story fit together.

Cassidy herself is actually complex. I liked Cassidy in ghost form but the things she did leading up to her death made me really dislike her. It’s one of those things where hindsight is 20/20. It seemed to me that Cassidy in ghost form was more true to herself than she was in her memories. She could see how she had become a different person and was ashamed with herself.

The romance is definitely different in this story because there really can not be a happy ending. My Last Kiss is not about finding love, it’s more about forgiveness than anything else. I really liked this different look at it. I loved looking back on some of Cassidy’s interactions with the boys even though I was pissed at some of the things she did.

There is a great friendship between Cassidy and Aimee in the book. It’s probably one of my favorite girl friendships that I have read. I expected for some reason for Madison and Aimee to be all mean girl about Cassidy but I was pleasantly surprised. Aimee is a hard core true friend to Cassidy even after her death. Even when some things come to light about situations Cassidy had gotten herself involved in. Amee never wavered.

I really enjoyed My Last Kiss because of the slowly progress complex mystery that is involved in it. The book also has one of my favorite friendships between two girls and the romance has a different approach that I really liked.