A Bit of Kissing by Jon Ripslinger
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (94 pages)
Age Recommendation:14+
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

I’m a male virgin. Eighteen. I’m going to stay a virgin until I fall for a girl I really love. My buddies think I’m weird, odd, stupid, crazy. But I’ve got my reasons. My womanizing dad has inflicted so much pain on my mom, my sister, and me it’s unbelievable. Get this, a seventeen-year-old jerk knocked up my fifteen-year-old sister. Now she’s struggling to meet the needs of her three-month-old son and stay in school. My friends’ lives are in chaos because of sex. Man, celibacy makes sense—no one’s life is disrupted. No one gets hurt. No one’s future is in jeopardy. Celibacy is the only way to go.
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Then I meet blonde, beautiful Penny Nichols. She’s rebounding from an abusive relationship. We both feel abstinence and a bit of kissing are cool. What can go wrong? Well … in one word—plenty!

There’s nothing simple about sex or love.

Charles was a complicated, realistic, and downright fascinating character. There were times when he was so judgemental about the choices other people made that I didn’t like him much at all even though I understood why he personally felt the need to be cautious about expressing his sexual desires in even small ways. I appreciated the fact that one of his biggest flaws was something that had a meaningful affect on the plot and that his reasons for behaving that way were explained clearly, though.

This story spent a great deal of time telling the reader what was going on in the lives of the characters instead of showing how their earlier life experiences were still negatively impacting them. I noticed this most clearly when it came to the unhealthy attitudes that Charles and his sister Andrea had developed about love and sex as a result of their emotionally unhealthy relationship with their dad. They were both very hurt by certain parts of their childhoods, but there weren’t a lot of concrete examples of what had happened or explorations of why that pain was still so fresh for them many years later. If not for this problem, I would have chosen a much higher rating as I loved everything else about this tale.

One of the things I enjoyed the most about the storyline was how timeless it felt. While it was set in the present day, it discussed issues that were just as relevant fifty years ago and will almost certainly continue to be things teens worry about fifty years in the future. This isn’t something I’ve been seeing done as often in the young adult genre lately, so I was quite happy to run across an author who is keeping this tradition going. There is definitely something to be said for writing a book that should remain meaningful to new readers for a very long time.

A Bit of Kissing should be read by anyone who has ever felt confused about sex or remembers what that stage in life was like.