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#5 Platform: Lips Touch
Apr. 7th, 2012 02:34 pmTales of first kisses, but not really kissing and telling.
Book #14: Lips Touch: Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor, illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
Firsts of all sorts are important to people; these tend to be the most memorable moments, stories that people recount. This may be particularly so for the story of a person’s first kiss, a milestone with a sweet touch of romance. Lips Touch collects three novelettes, each in a different part of the world in a different time, each focusing on a different sort of mythology and different characters, but all concerned with the first kiss of the main character, all girls.
Goblin Fruit, the first story, is concerned with a girl of gypsy roots, Kizzy, a high school student, and a none-too-popular one, who, along with her friends, longs to be connected with one of the more popular boys in school, to have a handsome boyfriend. She can hardly believe her luck when the hot new boy in the school, Jack Husk, seems interested in her, and spending time with her, from his first day. But is he more than he seems? What can she learn from her family lore and the spirits of the past that might guard her? The setup here was all right, but I found this story the weakest of the three; I don’t much care for the supernaturally beautiful (Taylor appears to, though, considering Daughter of Smoke and Bone), and Kizzy’s described future was more interesting than her present. I liked her well enough, I suppose, but this didn’t gel for me, and the writing here didn’t seem quite as even to me as the other two.
Spicy Little Curses Such as These was probably my favorite of the three stories. Here is a story sent in an India still under British rule, just after World War I, and draws more on the local mythology. Here, our lead character, Anamique, is cursed with having the most beautiful voice in the world, a curse that Estelle, a hard-edged old British lady who happens to be the local ambassador to Hell, procures for her in exchange for the lives of a couple of children. Why is having a beautiful voice a curse? Well, if you hear it, then it kills you. But when Anamique starts to fall in love with a war-weary soldier who’s relocated to the Raj, can she hold her tongue? The structure of this was very good, and the story’s turns and characters were fresh and surprising; I didn’t expect it to end where it did, but I was happy with it, for certain.
The final story, and the longest, is Hatchling, set in the world of the Druj, a mythology invented by Taylor, with a world of shape-shifters that live on their own, apart from the worlds of men, in mountain holdfasts. They can switch from human to animal shape, and take over the bodies of people; how Druj society works, their powers, and how they interact with humans, definitely is well-described, for the amount of space that it’s in. You get a real sense of their dark power. Our lead characters here are Esme and her mother Mab, who escaped from the Druj years before, just before Esme’s birth, and have been under threat ever since, but with the protection, perhaps, of Mihai, a Druj that doesn’t seem to work under the same rules at the others, exactly. The story is concerned really with Mab’s escape from Druj, and how the Druj came to have their power, to behave the way they do; it’s rather dark, and well-told. That said, I feel like the story in some is a run-up to Daughter of Smoke and Bone, with a lot of the same themes and tropes showing up; having read the other one first maybe lessened my appreciation of this one.
Overall, I quite enjoyed these stories: they definitely have their romance to them, but it’s the worlds that the characters inhabit that interests me more, perhaps, and how they find their place and their power within them. The kisses can be sweet, or dangerous, but they’re interesting, and well-placed. I’m definitely a fan of Taylor’s writing overall, now; it’s quite lush and almost lyrical at points without getting overwrought. She reminds me somewhat of Catherynne M. Valente in style, although I prefer the latter. The illustrations that flesh out the background of the story and the world that precede each story are gorgeous and lush, as well, but don’t expect to really understand what you see there until you read the story, for the most part.
All told, this is a pretty solid selection of stories, and worth reading, even if the cover is awfully, awfully bad. I was embarrassed to read it. Why they didn’t use one of the much better interior illustrations, I will never know. It’s not a bad introduction to Taylor’s work, but I might start with one of the novels.
Next up: Level Up.
Book #14: Lips Touch: Three Times
Author: Laini Taylor, illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
Firsts of all sorts are important to people; these tend to be the most memorable moments, stories that people recount. This may be particularly so for the story of a person’s first kiss, a milestone with a sweet touch of romance. Lips Touch collects three novelettes, each in a different part of the world in a different time, each focusing on a different sort of mythology and different characters, but all concerned with the first kiss of the main character, all girls.
Goblin Fruit, the first story, is concerned with a girl of gypsy roots, Kizzy, a high school student, and a none-too-popular one, who, along with her friends, longs to be connected with one of the more popular boys in school, to have a handsome boyfriend. She can hardly believe her luck when the hot new boy in the school, Jack Husk, seems interested in her, and spending time with her, from his first day. But is he more than he seems? What can she learn from her family lore and the spirits of the past that might guard her? The setup here was all right, but I found this story the weakest of the three; I don’t much care for the supernaturally beautiful (Taylor appears to, though, considering Daughter of Smoke and Bone), and Kizzy’s described future was more interesting than her present. I liked her well enough, I suppose, but this didn’t gel for me, and the writing here didn’t seem quite as even to me as the other two.
Spicy Little Curses Such as These was probably my favorite of the three stories. Here is a story sent in an India still under British rule, just after World War I, and draws more on the local mythology. Here, our lead character, Anamique, is cursed with having the most beautiful voice in the world, a curse that Estelle, a hard-edged old British lady who happens to be the local ambassador to Hell, procures for her in exchange for the lives of a couple of children. Why is having a beautiful voice a curse? Well, if you hear it, then it kills you. But when Anamique starts to fall in love with a war-weary soldier who’s relocated to the Raj, can she hold her tongue? The structure of this was very good, and the story’s turns and characters were fresh and surprising; I didn’t expect it to end where it did, but I was happy with it, for certain.
The final story, and the longest, is Hatchling, set in the world of the Druj, a mythology invented by Taylor, with a world of shape-shifters that live on their own, apart from the worlds of men, in mountain holdfasts. They can switch from human to animal shape, and take over the bodies of people; how Druj society works, their powers, and how they interact with humans, definitely is well-described, for the amount of space that it’s in. You get a real sense of their dark power. Our lead characters here are Esme and her mother Mab, who escaped from the Druj years before, just before Esme’s birth, and have been under threat ever since, but with the protection, perhaps, of Mihai, a Druj that doesn’t seem to work under the same rules at the others, exactly. The story is concerned really with Mab’s escape from Druj, and how the Druj came to have their power, to behave the way they do; it’s rather dark, and well-told. That said, I feel like the story in some is a run-up to Daughter of Smoke and Bone, with a lot of the same themes and tropes showing up; having read the other one first maybe lessened my appreciation of this one.
Overall, I quite enjoyed these stories: they definitely have their romance to them, but it’s the worlds that the characters inhabit that interests me more, perhaps, and how they find their place and their power within them. The kisses can be sweet, or dangerous, but they’re interesting, and well-placed. I’m definitely a fan of Taylor’s writing overall, now; it’s quite lush and almost lyrical at points without getting overwrought. She reminds me somewhat of Catherynne M. Valente in style, although I prefer the latter. The illustrations that flesh out the background of the story and the world that precede each story are gorgeous and lush, as well, but don’t expect to really understand what you see there until you read the story, for the most part.
All told, this is a pretty solid selection of stories, and worth reading, even if the cover is awfully, awfully bad. I was embarrassed to read it. Why they didn’t use one of the much better interior illustrations, I will never know. It’s not a bad introduction to Taylor’s work, but I might start with one of the novels.
Next up: Level Up.
