My Last Kiss

by Bethany Neal

Overview

What if your last kiss was with the wrong boy?

In Bethany Neal's My Last Kiss, 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.

Now, 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250063007
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	06/16/2015
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)
Lexile:	770L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Bethany Neal writes young adult novels with a little dark side and a lot of kissing from her Ann Arbor, Michigan, home. She graduated from Bowling Green State University. The things she is obsessed with include, but are not limited to: nail polish, ginormous rings, pigs, pickles, and dessert. My Last Kiss is her first novel.

Read an Excerpt

1

IT’S SNOWING OR MAYBE it’s raining … no, it’s snowing. I can feel the wet flakes gathering in the corners of my eyes, melting down my cheeks like tears. The warmth from the sun I felt on my face only an instant before is gone. When I blink, the only things I see are blotchy white bits of trees and clouds and lights. Where are those lights coming from? I stumble onto my feet and my legs feel Jell-O-y, like I’ve been swimming for a really long time and now the ground feels too rigid.

I take one step and suddenly my whole body stings. I fall to my knees and clutch my middle. The worst pain I’ve ever felt invades my limbs, like when your foot falls asleep except it’s my entire body and it’s epically stronger. I’m screaming and gripping my sides, writhing in the fluffy white snow. And then the pain stops; as fast as it came, it stops. Filled with relief, I do a quick once-over of my body. I even pinch my arm to check if I’m dreaming. How dumb is that?

I manage to open my eyes enough to see a silhouette standing above the waterline among the trees in Dover Park. He—at least I think it’s a he—is staring at me, but not at me, me. He’s staring at the bloody, twisted mess of me on the rocks along the riverbank.

Why are there two of me?! And how did I get in the river?

I run toward my Other, mangled body. I must be having a nightmare—but it’s like there’s a force field around me. I sort of melt into the air, then get flung back. I land on my butt in a massive snowbank at the water’s edge, waiting to feel the cold from sitting in waist-deep snow.

A jagged chunk of ice floats by, sparkling in the early-morning moonlight.

I still haven’t felt the cold.

The silhouette is talking now. I hear him, but the words are muffled as if he’s talking underwater. I press my hands to the sides of my face and squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating. His voice comes clearer … He’s telling me he didn’t mean to.

Mean to what?

Now he’s telling me this isn’t how it was supposed to go. This is her fault.

Is “her” me?

I open my eyes to check if he’s talking to me, me. He’s not. I look at my Other body, broken and folded in ways a body should never bend over a mound of gray rocks. In one of my Other hands I’m holding something, maybe a piece of paper, but I can’t see it clearly. Snow piles high again around my eyes and my cheeks and now on my shoulders. It comes down, harder and harder, until I feel buried in it. I can’t even see it and I’m buried in it so deep that I can’t breathe.

Slowly a thought creeps in, settles in the front of my mind. It tugs at something I feel like I know but can’t quite remember. I open my mouth to speak it, but I don’t see my breath the way I should in early March. I glance up at the silhouette. He’s crying or maybe he’s yelling; either way, I can see his breath.

I’m not breathing. I don’t need to. The words float past my lips like a rehearsed chorus: “I’m dead.”

Text copyright © 2014 by Bethany Neal

Editorial Reviews

The mystery here is well played, with possible guilt and culpability shifting deftly among the usual cast of high school chracters until the final reveal.” —BCCB

“Debut author Neal offers a good combination of paranormal ghost story mixed with romance, suspense, and mystery . . Readers will be immediately sucked into the tale, told from Cassidy's ghostly perspective, as she attempts to put together the pieces that led to her untimely death.” —Booklist

“Cassidy is sure she had no reason to end her life, and she cannot move on until she discovers how she really died . . . The story unfolds as her spirit is pulled uncontrollably from one grief-stricken friend or family member to another, and to reliving the events that led to her death.” —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

04/14/2014
Seventeen-year-old Cassidy Haines has just died after falling from a bridge, and now she’s a ghost, witnessing her own autopsy. She soon finds out that her boyfriend, Ethan, is the only person who can see her, and she enlists his help to piece together what actually took place on the night she died, even as her friend Aimée investigates, too. Through a series of flashbacks, Cassidy is forced to revisit moments leading up to her death. The setup of Neal’s debut may remind some adult readers of the 1980s classic Ghost, though the dialogue can sound more like that of a TV police procedural (“From where I was standing, she was unstable that night”) than a story about teenagers concerned about their friend’s death. Neal creates confusion while trying to maintain mystery; so many people in Cassidy’s life were involved on the night of her death, readers may find themselves as lost as Cassidy as the mystery progresses. Ages 12–up. Agent: Stacey Glick, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/01/2014
Gr 8 Up—Cassidy Haines is blissfully reliving her first kiss with boyfriend Ethan when she is jolted back into the present by snow falling on her face. She looks up to see the silhouette of a boy, and follows his gaze down to the broken remains of her body strewn across the rocks on the riverbank. She has no memory of how she got there, but it doesn't take her long to realize she's dead. The authorities rule her death a suicide due to a note found clutched in her hand and the large amount of alcohol in her system. Cassidy is sure she had no reason to end her life, and she cannot move on until she discovers how she really died. The story unfolds as her spirit is pulled uncontrollably from one grief-stricken friend or family member to another, and to reliving the events that led up to her death. The only person who becomes aware of her presence and who might be able to help her figure out what happened is Ethan, and he is afraid that once she knows, he'll have to go through losing her all over again. Slow pacing and character development may frustrate some readers. So much of the story focuses on a moral message about lying and deceit that a promising whodunit is sacrificed in the process.—Cary Frostick, formerly at Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA

School Library Journal

2014-04-16
Seventeen-year-old Cassidy Haines is on a quest to unravel the mystery of her own death, about which she can remember nothing except for the fact that it might have involved kissing someone other than her boyfriend.The police suspect that it was a suicide, but this doesn't ring true to Cassidy or to her best friend, Aimée. Intriguing? Perhaps. Neal's debut is much like a soufflé that collapses upon being served. Though not particularly groundbreaking, the premise is promising enough, but it simply can't support the meandering plot and disappointingly flat characters. Unfortunately, the limits on Cassidy's ability to sleuth from the afterworld create an awkward distance between Cassidy and the action—and readers. Cassidy is often a passive observer, spending the bulk of the novel looking on as Aimée scrambles to find out who was responsible for her death. The only person Cassidy can communicate with is her boyfriend, Ethan. This means that in order for her to play an active role in Aimée's investigation, she must go through Ethan first, making her twice removed from the action itself. Finally, there is far too much importance placed on secondary characters that are either never fully developed or developed far too late. Maybe Cassidy should have stayed in the morgue and let Aimée tell the tale.Less of a whodunit and more of a who cares. (Paranormal mystery. 13-17)

Kirkus Reviews