Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor
Release Date: October 1st 2011
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
Add it: Goodreads
Overall: ♥♥♥♥♥
 
After picking up the little pieces of my brain and putting it back together after the masterpiece that was Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I thought I'd give my brain a little time to get working again before reading anything else by Laini Taylor. Lips Touch is wonderful. Just plain wonderful. It's a collection of three short stories that has kissing, magic, fantasy creatures and that beautiful, beautiful thing that is Laini Taylor's prose and imagination. I love adore and envy Taylor's imagination and her incredible story telling ability. Each short story just gets progressively better and better. You'll think you've had and incredible taste of what's in store after you've finished Goblin Fruit and just when you think it can't get any better then Spicy Little Curses Such As These, Laini Taylor pulls out the big guns and has Hatchling bewitching your mind (I've been re-reading Harry Potter...) and believe me, will have you begging for more!

Goblin Fruit:
Stephenie Meyer! Becca Fitzpatrick! Lauren Kate! Gather around and listen! In approximately 35 pages, Laini Taylor has managed to write a better story and a more developed character than some other YA authors have in their entire series. This is a great feat. Kizzy is interesting, different and intriguing and has always been on the sidelines and has wanted that extra something in her life. This was the shortest of the three, but Kizzy's story will have you laughing and doing double takes the entire time. It's not as dark and gritty as the others, but the goblins and their fruit are fascinating, and is aplenty in so few pages.

Spicy Little Curses Such As These:
There was so much meaning in this story. Estella once made great sacrifice to a demon, and due to that, has been forced to make heavy decisions every day of her life whilst living in Hell. In order to save children, the demon says she must make sacrifices. She makes these sacrifices but when she is forced to place a curse on a baby named Anamique, the demon eventually gets more than he bargained for. Due to the curse, Anamique grows up mute, unable to even murmer a sound for the chance that it will kill anybody who hears it. She is teased and lives her life lonely until a soldier named James, finds her diary and falls in love with her. The romance that unfolds is breathtaking, beautiful and heartbreaking. Throughout, many sacrifices are made, but many lessons are learned.

Hatchling:
This was easily my favourite of the three! It BLEW MY MIND. The mythology was brilliant and once again, Laini Taylor has written a more complex and deep plot in 100 pages that many YA authors have tried (and failed) to do in their entire series. I WANT THIS MADE INTO A MOVIE. Or maybe I don't... Ohh, I don't know!! The world of the Druj is shocking and incredible. The Druj Queen keeps human children as pets until they reach child bearing age. This has so many stories rolled into one. Mab was the Queen's pet once, and her treatment was unbearable, it was absolutely horrible. When Mab is forced to have a child (literally, forced), we are told of how she managed to escape with her baby and what becomes of them once she becomes of child bearing age. Esme is incredibly three dimensional, and at first you may just think this is the story of Mab and Esme. But, it's not. This is only the tip of the iceberg and there is so much folklore and incredible world building. The 'villain' and characters who you think are just minor at first, turn out to have incredible stories of their own and Laini explores them so deeply and wonderfully that this will have you absolutely begging for more!

The illustrations are mind blowing. To call them beautiful would do them injustice. At first they don't make sense, but once you've finished, you realise they capture the true essence of each story. Jim Bartolo is so incredibly talented!