The First Last Kiss by Ali Harris

The First Last Kiss by Ali Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 3 days

Pages - 496

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

Blurb from Goodreads

How do you hold on to a love that is slowly slipping away from you?

Can you let go of the past when you know what is in the future?

And how do you cope when you know that every kiss is a countdown to goodbye?

This is the story of a love affair, of Ryan and Molly and how they fell in love and were torn apart. The first time Molly kissed Ryan, she knew they'd be together forever. Six years and thousands of kisses later she's married to the man she loves. But today, when Ryan kisses her, Molly realises how many of them she wasted because the future holds something which neither of them could have ever predicted…



My Review

The book opens in 2012, present day in the story's timeline, with Molly who is preparing for a big move, packing up always stirs up memories and Molly is no different. She finds a dvd and knows she shouldn't watch but she can't help herself. The dvd takes form in chapters of the book with different timelines and memories in Molly's life. Mostly surrounding her relationship with Ryan and her friends and family dipping in and out. The book revolves around Molly and Ryan, since they were teens up until their late twenties.

I have to say I wasn't loving the first half of this book, there was quite a bit of almost teen angst and the whole oh I love him he is the best thing to I don't know if I want to be with him. Lots of self doubt on Molly's part and thoughts back to how her younger self would disapprove of her choices as an adult. The timeline jumping around, back and forth annoyed me quite a bit too, despite knowing it comes from the memories and videos from the DVD the present day Molly is watching as she packs up her home.

However, once I got over say the first half of the book, I really got into it. The earlier shows of the character's personality helps to build up a picture of who she is and why she behaves in the way she does. By giving a wider view of the relationship over time periods and time passage it helps the reader to see how far they come and how the relationship grows.

There is also, in between chapters, little passages about different kinds of kisses, I thought this was random but by the time you have read the whole book the relevance of it becomes clear. I think this is a book that would benefit from being read a few times as you take greater significance from it knowing the whole story. The chapters are fairly short which makes for good dipping in and out of if you are busy. I found myself getting a wee bit emotional which is really unusual for me, normally have a swinging brick, but I think it was because the book had started off annoying me and I didn't think I actually liked many of the characters. 4/5 for me, I would read this author again and it just goes to show, even if a book hasn't grabbed you immediately, it can still go on to be fabulous!