SUMMARY
Anna Eliot is tired of worrying about what other people think. After all, that was how she lost the only guy she ever really liked, Finn Westbrook.
Now, three years after she broke his heart, the one who got away is back in her life.
All Anna wants is a chance to relive their last kiss again (and again and again). But Finn obviously hasn’t forgotten how she treated him, and he’s made it clear he has no interest in having anything to do with her.
Anna keeps trying to persuade herself that she doesn’t care about Finn either, but even though they’ve both changed since they first met, deep down she knows he’s the guy for her. Now if only she can get him to believe that, too….
ABOUT CLAIRE
I grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, went to Harvard and moved to LA. (My name was Claire Scovell for a large part of all that.) I’ve written five novels for adults, Same as It Never Was, Knitting under the Influence, The Smart One and the Pretty One, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now, and Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts. I’ve also published two YA novels with Harper Collins: Epic Fail and The Trouble with Flirting (due out in winter, 2012/3). With Lynn Koegel (who’s absolutely brilliant), I co-wrote Overcoming Autism: Finding the Answers, Strategies and Hope That Can Transform a Child’s Lifeand Growing up on the Spectrum: A guide to life, love and learning for young adults with autism and Asperger’s. I contributed to an anthology play called Motherhood Out Loud, and have been published in The New York Times, Self, Vogue and other magazines.
Jaime’s Thoughts
The Last Best Kiss by Claire LaZebnik
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Remember back to the days when all you were worried about was fitting in and not making a fool of yourself and making sure your friends accepted you?
Lezebnik takes you back to those days with The Last Best Kiss. We first meet Anna Eliot as a freshman… not completely sure of herself and worried about doing the wrong thing, the thing that will make her an outcast amongst her friends, and so she tries not to stand out. But she meets Finn Westbrook when her sister offers him a ride to school in the morning. But Finn isn’t even on her friend’s radars. He was one of the nerdy kids who liked science and math and didn’t go to parties and hadn’t had that growth spurt yet.
”He’s perfect boyfriend material – you could carry him around in your pocket. He could be your pocket boyfriend, and you could take him out whenever you felt like it and then stuff him back in when you got bored.”
Yet, Anna finds herself drawn to him and what starts as an innocent friendship sharing science facts and pictures eventually turns into secret dates and kisses, but when Anna humiliates him in front of everyone at school there is no turning back and she never gets the chance to apologize because that summer his family moves away.
Fast forward to senior year. Finn Westbrook is back and he’s made his way into her group of friends and suddenly Anna is faced with how horrible she actually was to him and any effort she tries to make to form their friendship again is ignored… in fact, Finn seems to be falling for one of her best friends which makes things a million times worse.
Let’s get the things that I wasn’t fond of out of the way. Anna’s family. I didn’t understand them and I didn’t understand their role in this story. Her mother is non-existent having left them and her father is more concerned with work and spending time with his middle daughter Lizzie for some strange and somewhat odd reason that is never really explained fully. The only family member that had some kind of impact on her was her sister Molly who helped her make sense of the situation she had with Finn. It was all just kind of weird for me and I struggled to figure out their roles in this story.
Second – pretty much every single character in this story. I didn’t care much about any of them, except maybe Finn back in the 9th grade. I mean, all her friendships seem to be incredibly superficial, no one seems to actually care about anyone else, and they just don’t come across as supportive to each other no matter the situation. Oh… when that one thing happens they sort of all come together, but even then it all seemed so superficial to me.
I did like some things about this … the story itself is a cute take on a reimagined version of Persuasion. The writing was wonderfully done and the pacing was good, there was definitely never a lack of things happening.
I really enjoyed the growth of Anna’s character. I found that while she did some really mean things when she was younger to Finn, I liked that she took ownership of those actions and apologized and was really making an effort with Finn. Even though he was still kind of mean to her.
If you’re looking for a cute coming of age story one with an authentic teenage voice then definitely check this one out. I’ll definitely be looking for additional stories from Lezebnik.
Thank you to HarperTeen and Edelweiss for the advance copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
Recent Comments