Lip gloss addict Emerson Taylor and her best friend, Trina, have declared this year the Year of the Boy and vowed to find boyfriends. But for Emerson, there’s just one problem: she can read the mind of anyone whose lips touch hers. It’s totally creepy—and at first it seems like a curse. But Emerson soon realizes there are perks to her strange talent—like the ability to steal secrets, memories, and most importantly, test answers. If Emerson doesn’t bring up her grades soon, her days at her private school will be numbered. But kissing for grades is stickier than lip gloss, and Emerson’s about to learn some lessons not found in her textbooks—lessons about true love, and real beauty. Oh, why can’t life be as simple as choosing the perfect shade of lip gloss?
Release date: October 2nd 2012
Review by Melissa
Kiss & Make Up is a sweet YA read to lift anyone’s mood with its cute and funny storyline. It’s the kind of book where you smile, laugh, groan, shudder and blush with shame from totally ridiculous and amusing moments that you’d wish to rather run a hundred miles marathon wearing heels than having to face them.
Emerson Taylor starts by being a very insecure girl, despite her popularity. She makes rash decisions using her unique gift, messing up a bit her life, but growing so much along the way by learning from her past mistakes. She goes from being an uncaring student to a dedicated one, trying to make up for her past behavior. Her love for makeup, especially lip gloss, is interesting and has an important role in the way she sees everything. Such is the way that she relates her feelings to the soothing names of her favorite products and uses her knowledge to see beyond the cover of a person, to appreciate the being underneath. Like Edwin for instance, who’s very smart, very cute and a great musician with an appealing personality that he’s the type worth crushing and rooting for.
Every chapter was named after a lip gloss too, which I thought to be odd at first, yet I came to like them since they fit perfectly with titles like "Melon Madness" "Shock Me, Stop Me" or "Reality Red". It’s very clear this author has an obsession with lip gloss and it’s a nice surprise the way she mixed this into the whole typical teen drama we face at that age, minus the superpower that is.
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