Joint Review: Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach

by:  Lottie Moggach
published by:  Doubleday
publish date:  July 9, 2013

When Leila discovers the Web site Red Pill, she feels she has finally found people who understand her. A sheltered young woman raised by her mother, Leila has often struggled to connect with the girls at school; but on Red Pill, a chat forum for ethical debate, Leila comes into her own, impressing the Web site's founder, a brilliant and elusive man named Adrian. Leila is thrilled when Adrian asks to meet her, flattered when he invites her to be part of "Project Tess." 

This was another one of those books being flaunted as this summer's Gone Girl so I approached it with a little wariness.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  I really found this book to be a very good, thought provoking mystery.  

The story is centered around Leila getting involved with the Red Pill website and right to die debates.  Her activities catch the attention of the founder and he asks her to help Tess with her suicide.  She doesn't want anyone to know that she has died, so Leila's job is to take over Tess' life online by updating Facebook statuses and answering email.  

Personally, I thought that was a pretty ingenious idea.  That'd be a great twist in a murder mystery to mess up the timeline.  While at times I found Leila to be somewhat immature, I liked her.  I think she's like a lot of people that spend too much time in front of a computer reading about things instead of actually going out and experiencing them and that's where her immaturity came from.  

I also really enjoyed Kiss Me First.  At first I thought it was weird  but as the story progressed, I started to really enjoy the book.  Not only is it a great mystery, it is an interesting premise. It really brought up some questions for me.  What would possess someone to agree to pretend to be another person so that that person could commit suicide?  How well do we really know someone?  How do we know that the person we "talk" to every day online is who they say they are?  

The story went very quickly for me.  I was really intrigued.  There are a few surprises for the reader.  I liked Leila. I thought she was very real and straight forward.  Her reasoning for what she did made sense to me.  I definitely recommend this one.  For me it was a fresh idea and a great debut book.