Jul 26, 2012

Kissing Kate and My Thoughts About It

Yes, I know a couple of Kates, but I have kissed none of them. This post is about the book "Kissing Kate", so if you clicked it expecting a juicy story, you've been tricked.

Sorry about that, my dear regular readers, but if you saw my blog statistics you'd do the same. I think a LOT of people happen around my posts on mistake, thanks by oddly-working search engines.

The book - Kissing Kate, by Lauren Myracle - is basically a teen book, which may explain why I read it in a day and a half (the first day basically reading on tramways and metros as I did my many trips to IKEA, first to look around and then to get the screws for my burgundy box, since they were forgotten from the packing). The story goes basically about Lissa having been kissed by her gorgeous best friend, Kate, and kissing her back at a party. Kate regrets it and after a period of ignoring each other, Kate wants to make things  as if they have never happened, while Lissa is left wandering what the hell is going on with herself, her friendship and everything in between.

There are few characters, which makes the story very easy to follow, with anough bubbly and happy characters to keep it light. Bear in mind again, that it is a teenager book, so a lot of things must remain light and easily digestable. However this doesn't make the book less enjoyable. Truth to be told, I loved it. And though Lissa is quite likable inspite of her grudgy, rough, hedgehog-complex thing going on, I really got to love Ariel, the hippie-ish, happy-go-Pagan girl who won't get dishearted and try and do her best to sneak into the hearts of those she likes, while being strong in touch with herself, living her dreams and hopes, shaping her life and her world like an artistic potter.

I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, so if you are planning to read the book SKIP THE PURPLE PART! One thing that truly shocked be about it, though, was how suddenly the book ended. I don't know how did it tricked me so well - I should have felt the end coming, since the right part of the book was significantly smaller than the left side, but I kept reading and reading... and it ended. Just a chapter like the others, with a plot just like the others, and the book ended. No final revelation, no solving the Kate thing, not  solving any of the other situations and relationships in her life, not going deeper about Beth or Jerry or Darlin, Finn or Ariel, just another chapter.

At first I was taken aback, paging through the last blank pages in the book (really, why are there blank pages at the end of books? Are we supposed to take notes or something? Is it the place to dedicate? Have you ever wondered about that?). I was a bit disappointed, but then I was really happy. This book actually worked out a concept I was rolling around with for some years now: real life endings.

In real life "endings" exists only retrospectively, in our heads, in our pasts or maybe our futures, but not in our present. The world doesn't end when our life long relationship ends - even if we feel that way - but life continues on and on. You wake up, shower, brush your teeth, dress, pour hot coffee on your freshly brushed teeth and go to work. Also, just because you finally got a break through and solved a problem in your life, figured out a soul tugging question, life doesn't stop to admire your work. In a sense, Kissing Kate does that. It's end points to the life that goes on, the issues that might stretch for ages, but you decide to deal with them, accept them, maybe adjust to them and work towards getting things sorted out.

The next book I'm preparing is a "not real" book. Yes, I've got Heat Wave by Richard Castle, the fake book from the writer from the series Castle. I just couldn't resist it. ^_^ And I've got it in Hungarian. So, in case you wonder, yes, there's a book by a made-up writer being translated to a lot of languages, including Hungarian.

The book has a lot of bad comments, and I'm not expecting much of it, but come on! It's a book written by a procedural show's character! It's like reading the Supernatural books by Carver Edlund (Chuck Shurley/God) from Supernatural. Good or bad, the thing about books like this, is that they work as a "portal", which allows your to believe for a moment that you are living in the world made up by the sitcom, and don't we all love that at one point? :-)

Wonder how long will it take me to read that book, specially since I'm dropping all my planned activities for today, just to do this one, simple thing. :-)

BTW, I've got on GoodReads, a site where you get recommendations of books you might like to read. If you are there and would like to contact me let me know. :-) It would be fun to share book suggestions through it, wouldn't you think?

No comments: