Bethany NealBesprekingen

3.5... Solidly good, but went on way too long

Cassidy wakes up and finds out she's dead. The problem is she can't remember what exactly happened to make her this way. She knows she had a fall from a bridge after a party, but she doesn't know much else. The police are calling it a suicide, but Cassidy can't imagine she would ever do that. The only person who can see her is Ethan. Sweet Ethan is the only boy she ever loved... but she knows she's done something to betray his trust, she just can't remember what. That betrayal may be the key to finding out what happened to her, she just needs to figure out what happened that night on the bridge... and everything leading up to it.

My Thoughts:
I am all for a good YA Mystery. I know it's been done like a million times, but I like it when the main character doesn't remember something and goes through the slow process of getting those memories back. It's like putting together a puzzle. A puzzle that makes me really anxious and excited to see the big picture.

This book was one of those books where you really really want to know what happened. Who pushed Cassidy?... or did she just have an accident?? I wanted to know so bad. There was a cool cast of characters and so many of them were suspects. The thing is, this book was broken up into 3 phases for me. Phase 1- I'm totally into it and really want to know what's going on... Phase 2- I'm like whhhyyyy is this taking so long to get through?? Why are we going over the same details and why is this situation way more complicated than it needs to be??... Phase 3- Ohh now we're getting to the good stuff. But I'm still a little confused as why this whole "big reveal" is so complicated.

Another thing I want to talk about is the cheating aspect. Cheating is NOT a deal-breaker for me. Just because cheating is going on, doesn't mean that I will automatically dislike a character. There is a cheating event in this book and the act itself didn't really bug me... I mean, people cheat, it happens. These are 17-year-olds. They're still figuring things out. I just didn't like the way Cassidy treated the boy she cheated with AT ALL. She was so worried about Ethan and his feelings, but the other boy could have easily have jumped off the bridge too and she wouldn't have batted an eye. It pissed me off and it made me dislike Cassidy. You can't just use a guy who genuinely cares about you and then boo-hoo about how you hurt your perfect boyfriend. That's not going to make me like you.

So I really enjoyed the mystery of this book, but I felt like it dragged a lot and didn't need to be so complicated. There are like 8 people involved in this book and they're ALL mixed together and connected in all these weird ways. I didn't really like how all that played out. It was a solid book with a good mystery, but could have definitely been better.

OVERALL: An intriguing mystery that made me want to fly through it to the end. I felt like it dragged a bit in the middle and the main character did a lot of stuff that made me feel annoyed with her. If you like reading these type of ghost/mystery books, this one should definitely go on your list.

My Blog:

PopSugar '15 #6--book written by someone under 30 (guessing here...)
Interesting premise, but not very surprising. Neal's a good writer and I'll look for more books; this one just didn't stand out for me.

My Last Kiss drew me in from the beginning. Who doesn’t love a ghost story mystery???

I liked Cassidy. She’s an outgoing girl that made a few mistakes. There were times I wanted to knock her upside the head, but she took being a ghostly being pretty well. I like that she cares for her friends. She is always trying to console them even when they have been total jerks. I don’t agree with how she handled some things, but those are incidents you learn with age. She doesn’t really have much of that left anymore. :p I also like how determined some of her friends were that Cassidy’s death wasn’t a suicide.

I loved how Cassidy was a part of discovering what really happened to her. She fought for the information, and dealt with the consequences. I had an idea about who might have done it, but I wasn’t sure. The ending was great, and I loved every second of this ride. It was fun, mysterious, and enjoyable.

Unfortunately, My Last Kiss also failed to make much of an impression on me. It certainly wasn’t bad, and I enjoyed myself while I was reading it, but it’s not a story I’ll revisit. I kept waiting to be grabbed, to really connect with Cassidy and care about how and why she died. Instead, the closest I got to caring was the way I ached for her poor siblings. She was the dead one, but they were the ones who would have to live with the hole in their family.

Actually, Aimee, Cassidy’s bulldog of a friend, was far more interesting than Cassidy herself. Aimee is the friend who spearheads the amateur investigation into Cassidy’s death and puts together the clues of what happened that night. I really would have liked to have seen the story from Aimee’s POV, especially as she starts to doubt the word of everyone, even her closest friends. The tension does ratchet up as the story progresses, but the ending was too chaotic and messy for my taste.

Note: I received a review copy of this title from the publisher for review consideration.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT: http://www.shaelit.com/2014/07/mini-reviews-the-half-life-of-molly-pierce-and-my...

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: This novel was extremely hard for me to get into, but the last third of the book knocked the review up a star. The last third was full of action, suspense, and soul searching. The rest felt bland.

Opening Sentence: “How old were you when you had yours?”

The Review:

Cassidy is dead. And she doesn’t remember how. She seems to be a ghost, hovering around friends and family, invisible to everyone but her boyfriend. She needs to discover how she died, because unlike the police she knows she didn’t throw herself off a bridge when drunk at her birthday party. As the story unfolds so does Cassidy’s memories. And it seems like maybe, maybe, her boyfriend Ethan wasn’t her last kiss after all.

As moderate to amazing reviews for My Last Kiss began to roll in, I got excited. Just a week before I had received it to review! Suddenly I found myself free with nothing on the schedule. Birds were chirping, palm trees swaying, beautiful California weather — the perfect reading time. I started My Last Kiss with high expectations, but unfortunately, was disappointed. I couldn’t get into the story to save my life. I would grit my teeth when I knew I had to sit down and read. The writing style wasn’t bad in the slightest, and the plot was unique. I simply could not find a reason to continue, and wasn’t hooked enough in the first chapters. I got confused easily and thought the main character was a tad bit annoying. I thought my experience reading this novel was doomed for sure, but luckily enough it was not —- the last third of the book I really enjoyed. The last hundred pages there was many realizations, lots of action, lots of soul searching, and overall what I expected from the book as a whole. The conclusion was well-written and described with an intriguing twist. I appreciated the main character and the story more. Basically, the last third knocked up the review a star. Since it was so hard to get to the last third, I only gave three stars, especially because I considered not finishing a couple times. (I haven’t ever not finished a review book even if I hated it. I hope I never have to!)

The main character, Cassidy, is going through a tough enough time before she supposedly commits suicide. Her mother moved out and family problems are flooding in. Of course, it doesn’t help that she’s kissing someone who isn’t her boyfriend in her spare time. Cassidy knows it is wrong and tries to stop herself, but it’s only at the very end of the book that she finally forces herself to choose one of them. This is probably the reason she irritated me every so often. I wanted her to figure out what she could on her own, set her moral compass right. However most of the book switches from after she died in her ghostly glory and her downward spiral beforehand. I was extremely pleased when she made up her mind and set things right, and chose one of them, even if it was at the very end.

The two boys are Ethan and Caleb, the first being her boyfriend, the second her old friend she just happens to be kissing before dying. I was very intensely team Ethan. I have already said I don’t approve of her cheating, even if he “understands” her family troubles. Caleb is not her boyfriend — end of story. It would be fine if she chose one of them without the cheating going on so long, but uch! Cassidy! Get it together and figure it out, it had been three weeks. And she dies around week four. Ethan was adorable and understanding and she is horrible to him part of the time.

My Last Kiss had a rocky start for me. I was annoyed by basically everything. In the last third I started to enjoy it and appreciate the unique plotline and intricate puzzle pieces of the mystery. The ending is surprising and is resolved cleanly without confusion. Obviously though I am the black sheep for this one, as many enjoyed My Last Kiss, so even though I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, other reviewers would. I will say that those who like a good murder mystery and don’t mind some ghostly action mixed in will enjoy this novel.

Notable Scene:

He’s crying or maybe he’s yelling; either way, I can see his breath.

I’m not breathing. I don’t need to. The words float past my lips like a rehearsed chorus: “I’m dead.”

FTC Advisory: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan provided me with a copy of My Last Kiss. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.

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.

I wanted to read this because I enjoy these sort of "ghost" or afterlife stories. It is a spin-off of the amnesia because it becomes a quest for her to figure out what led to her death and if her last kiss was with the wrong guy.

It drew me in right away because Cassidy has a voice that feels natural. She is in really stressful place because she is watching her death scene and then ends up in the morgue with her own body. Then she visits family and the boy who was her perfect first kiss. She does what she calls melting when she has the flashbacks of memories. She feels wet and then her body starts to disappear and she "wakes up" in a new place and time. Some of the memories are from further back but most are giving us the pieces of the puzzle in the weeks leading up to her death.

I liked the friendship it drew between Cass, Aimee, and Madison. They had a group that was close, and really knew each other. Their quirks, how their emotions are displayed or hidden. Aimee and Madison both grieve differently but they get on a mission to figure out what happened to her, and are denying the rumor that she committed suicide because they feel like the friend they knew wouldn't do that, and she seemed drunk but def not depressed at the party right before Cassidy died. Though I was surprised at the part that one of the friends in Cass' circle played into the party, the different people on the bridge with Cassidy and maybe even the one behind trying to break up Ethan and Cassidy.

The romance between Ethan and Cassidy was so sweet. I loved the way they were together in the flashbacks. But things started to change and we get the impression that there was another guy, and there was also a rumor that they were breaking up but Cassidy didn't know anything about it. So, it was hard to give in to the romance completely because I don't know if Ethan was planning to break up with her, or if she cheated on him with her last kiss. Or was there a last kiss (at 20% I am speculating this, I have no idea.)

There were a few things that caused me to rate down a bit. There weren't explanations for why Ethan was special in that ***minor spoiler--highlight to read*** only he could see Cassidy. I know they were together but there could be some sort of explanation. There was love between her and her parents, friends, etc. Then there were some times when the reveals felt like filler. There were some of the flashbacks that I liked because it gave us history with Cass and Ethan, Cass and her friends, as well as her and her family.

I saw a lot of growth in Cassidy. While at the beginning she seemed like I could relate to her, and I certainly wanted to get to the bottom of her reason for being a ghost. As I got some of the flashbacks it became a little bit harder to like her with some of her actions. But I can also get that we all make mistakes and do things in the heat of the moment that we'll regret or doesn't tell the full story who we are. But still, I can see how she realizes that and that she sees things in a new way. Ultimately though, what made me completely go there with her was as much as she tried to rationalize everything she did wrong (and admit it, we all do things wrong) I could see why she made the decisions she did. And at the end, she accepted that she'd messed up, owned it, and did her best to make it all as right as possible.

While there is the semi love triangle and some cheating, it never bothered me like it usually does, and I don't know if I understand that when you have a friend or boyfriend who seems so good and has a good family it is hard to confide about your own new issues at home. And how it can be easy to mix up childhood nostalgia for feelings you can act on when the other person has been in your life so long and cares so much for you.

The book really kept me guessing right up until the end, so even with the bits of repetition, I can look back and see that there are elements that really did add to the big picture. Each character played their part in the whole story and most of them really do have reason to feel at least a little guilty over all that led up to that point.

Bottom Line: If you like the premise, you'll enjoy this suspense-filled journey to discovering the events leading up to main character's death.

**I received this book for free as part of a First-Reads promotion