A Thousand Boy Kisses

I just finished A thousand boy kisses by Tillie Cole and my heart is broken.

How two very different souls found a love that spanned life and death....

When Rune moved to Georgia from Norway at aged 5, he was upset... What he didn't expect was the girl next door to climb out of her window and declare them the very best of friends. From that moment, Poppy and rune became two halves of a whole.

10 years later Runes' family have to go back to Norway for work and the idea of being apart destroys them both. While he is gone, Poppy cuts off all contact and Rune lets himself get carried away in his darkness.

When he comes back to Georgia 2 years later he has one question on his lips... Why. Why did she cut him off? What she finally tells him rocks him to his core and Poppy needs to find the boy that left her 2 years ago.

I need to start reading the synopsis of books instead of going in blind because I thought this book would be a sweet YA.... I didn't expect my whole soul to be crushed into a million pieces.

The sullen bad boy with the optimistic musician is a tale as old as time but the way the author unravelled them was so raw in its complexity that I felt I had never read a grumpy sunshine book before. Poppy's grandmother dies when she is young and she gives her a jar to put all her boy kisses in. The ones that make her heart almost burst. The only boy she kisses is Rune.

Its beautiful the way their love story unfolds and while I don't usually add in quotes from books... This one hit me so hard...

“An unrivaled beauty, limited in its life. A beauty so extreme in its grace that it can't last. It stays to enrich our lives, then drifts away in the wind. Never forgotten. Because it reminds us we must live. That life is fragile, yet in that fragility, there is strength. There is love. There is purpose. It reminds us that life is short, that our breaths are numbered and our destiny is fixed, regardless of how hard we fight.”

GUH I spent at least half the book in tears. It hit me right in the feelers and I wouldn't have read this book had it not been by mistake but I am glad I did...

5 stars