My Last Kiss by Bethany Neal
Published by Farrar Straus and Giroux on June 10, 2014
Genres: Paranormal
Pages: 358
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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What if your last kiss was with the wrong boy? 

Cassidy Haines remembers her first kiss vividly. It was on the old covered bridge the summer before her freshman year with her boyfriend of three years, Ethan Keys. But her last kiss--the one she shared with someone at her seventeenth birthday party the night she died--is a blur. Cassidy is trapped in the living world, not only mourning the loss of her human body, but left with the grim suspicion that her untimely death wasn't a suicide as everyone assumes. She can't remember anything from the weeks leading up to her birthday and she's worried that she may have betrayed her boyfriend. 

If Cassidy is to uncover the truth about that fateful night and make amends with the only boy she'll ever love, she must face her past and all the decisions she made--good and bad--that led to her last kiss.

Bethany Neal’s debut novel, My Last Kiss, was not at all what I expected.  It had a lot of potential to be an awesome story but it fell flat in a lot of areas.  I enjoyed it enough to read it through but this one may not be for everyone.

My Last Kiss has a promising start.  Cassidy wakes up and quickly realizes that she is dead but she has no clue how that came to be.  Readers follow Cassidy through her journey of discovering what exactly happened in the weeks leading up to her death as well what she has to do to pass on.  The chapters alternate between Cassidy’s current situation and the weeks leading up to her death. Cassidy is in for a lot of surprises as she comes to realize that she did some things she wasn’t proud of before her death and she not only has to find out who caused  her death but also make up for those things she did.

Like I said, My Last Kiss, starts off great.  It’s where it goes from there that I had problems with.  Cassidy was my biggest problem.  She was selfish and really kind of a bitch.  Readers quickly come to realize that she was up to some really bad things before her death and she hurt a lot of people who didn’t deserve it.  Her boyfriend, Ethan, was hurt the worst.  Ethan was completely wonderful although I think he may have been a little too perfect.  I would have liked to see some flaws from Ethan but that still didn’t make up for what Cassidy did to him.  And her reasoning behind everything she did was so dumb and self-centered.  She was only ever looking out for herself.  Also, Caleb, her childhood friend turned maybe something more, didn’t deserve how she treated him either.  Just because he was a slacker and a stoner didn’t mean he deserved to be judged as worthless.  I truly liked him way more than Cassidy.  As for Cassidy’s friends, it was pretty easy to see why they were friends.  They shared a lot of the same characteristics and they weren’t exactly good ones.

The mystery is what kept me reading.  I actually couldn’t guess the killer or the motive in My Last Kiss.  It was a very twisted story that didn’t become clear until the very end of the book.  It was pretty much the only thing that kept me interested in the book.  Cassidy’s killer wasn’t necessarily a bad guy and they didn’t set out to kill her but how everything worked out in the end was pretty terrifying.

Overall, My Last Kiss is not for people looking for a character they will root for or a fast-paced story.  If you think you can overlook Cassidy’s flaws though and enjoy it for the mystery aspect, it might be for you.

What others are saying about My Last Kiss:

Not Yet Read’s review: “There is plenty of WHINE to go with this CHEESE.”

Books and Swoons’ review: “I really enjoyed reading My Last Kiss.”

Alexa Loves Books’ review: “While the writing wasn’t horrible, the story wasn’t particularly memorable and thus, this novel was just okay.”