Lips Touch Three Times

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Average customer rating 4.5 (4 comments)

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(I listened to the audiobook version of Lips Touch Three Times, so haven't seen the drawings that are in the print version.) Of the three stories, only the third and longest one felt to me like an original and fully realized work. "Hatchling" kept me intrigued as it moved back and forth in time, with each twist revealing more about what I had just heard. My sympathy expanded to characters I'd thought were flat evil, and I loved the fantastical winter landscapes. The first and second stories seemed trapped in stereotyped versions of Romani and colonized Indian cultures, which made me uncomfortable (the overdone Indian accent the narrator put on for the audio version didn't help). The first story, especially given its contemporary setting, seemed overwritten. I wanted the author to stop with the evocative language and description and get on with it; it was as though she'd been told to Use All Five Senses in her writing and was cramming them all in long after we'd gotten the point. I enjoyed the fairy-tale rhythm of the second story more, but it didn't expand or examine anything beyond its stock fairy-tale outline. In conclusion, if you start this book and it's not clicking for you, don't give up before trying the third story.

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This book is compiled of three riveting tales of the paranormal. From the first story of goblins who pray on girls with little or no self love, to the very last word I was hooked.

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*blinks curiously, wondering how she could possibly be back in this quotidian setting after the intensity of the world she was just in* Yeah, it's one of those books. I read more than half of it at Powell's yesterday, having become oblivious to any other book after picking it up. Then I read half the night, and slept tangled in dreams that left shivery footprints which evaporated when I opened my eyes to see where the blood was. I finished it this morning while my coffee cooled on the nightstand, unheeded. And I'm not all the way back yet because I'm sure that somewhere behind me, somewhere very near there's something not quite safe. And I like it. Lovely prose, bewitching fairy-tales, beautiful illustrations. One for the permanent collection.

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This is a beautiful and technically inspiring book. Taylor's style is as rich as her settings yet readable and fluid. Her words fit to the stories, they with heavy spice to match the musky age of Kizzie's vintage velvet scarf. It is worth buying and treasuring.