Summer Shorts - Dead Book Darling - Puppy!

Summer Shorts is a weekly feature on Dead Book Darling, reviewing great short stories every Saturday through July-August 2010.  I’ve been reading quite a few fabulous anthologies lately, and I want to share the love!

Kiss and Tell by Michele Jaffe

Michele’s site / Goodreads / Librarything

Find it in: Prom Nights From Hell Anthology
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 3 stars

Thoughts: Kiss and Tell was adorable but rather clunky. Miranda is a gifted 18-year-old with troubled past and a rather odd love of self-help book (How to Get – And Kiss! – Your Guy played a rather large part in the plot).

The book alternated between rather giggly fun, and some Pretty Serious Stuff. And even though I enjoyed it, I honestly don’t know what this story is about. Miranda saves a rather bizarre “fourteen”-year-old and then sets up a date with a guy she has been crushing on (who we see bizarrely little of, btw)… and that’s all I know for sure. There is – supposedly – quite a big reveal about Miranda’s powers and family… but I really just didn’t get it. Nothing was properly explained and the story didn’t really get wrapped up.

There were some rather interesting secondary characters in the tale, including Miranda’s lesbian BFF and a kiss-a-holic fourteen-year-old (who I could have done without, but she did have some rather funny moments).

Bottom line? Fun but unfinished. If you skip it, you’re not missing much – but if you read it, expect a few fun laughs. I think Jaffe might be better novel-length fiction.

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