Review: Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe*

   *I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.

Title: Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)
Author: Tess Sharpe
Genre: Young Adult /  LGBTQ+ Fiction

Trigger warnings:  Parental Loss, Abuse/Neglect by a parent, Cancer, Parental Illness, Death, PTSD, Suicide Ideation, Anti-Therapy and Anti-Medication Attitudes (from a parent, including therapy denial).

Rating: ★★★★★

Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) tells the heart-warming coming of age story of Penny and Tate, two girls who have always clashed but whose lives constantly overlap through their mothers who have been best friends since childhood. When Tate’s mum needs a liver transplant, Penny’s mum volunteers to be a live donor and they choose to combine households so the families can support each other physically, emotionally and financially. This means that Penny and Tate are living under the same roof and are forced to address the one thing they keep ignoring: the fact that they keep almost kissing.

Penny and Tate’s story is a beautiful slow burn romance, perfect for fans of the enemies to lovers trope. In Penny and Tate’s love story we also really see the everyone can see it trope as not only do their friends see a spark between them but their mums do too. The book is structured into multiple parts, with each part telling the story of an individual time the pair has almost kissed, gradually building up to them actually kissing and becoming a couple. Structuring the story in this way gave us as readers an insight into the full complicated story of their relationship and how shared experiences have brought them closer together. We also have occasional pages which share text feeds between different characters, particularly between Penny and Tate and between Meghan (Penny’s best friend) and Remington (Tate’s best friend). This breaks up the narrative in quite a light-hearted and often humorous way so was a nice addition to the story.

In Six Times We Almost Kissed we have a story which goes beyond the typical light-hearted love story you’d expect from a YA romance novel. Both girls have had to grow up incredibly quickly and I think Tess Sharpe explores this really well. Tate has had to manage having a single parent with a long-term illness and this has included taking a role in managing the family finances despite only being a teenager. Penny is recovering from the trauma of the water sports accident which injured her and killed her father and interjected within the narrative are occasional chapters which provide a flashback to the events surrounding the accident. This really helps readers to understand the trauma Penny has as a result and the way it has impacted on her relationship with her mum. We see real character development in the character of Penny throughout the story as she learns to stand up to herself against her Mum and demand what she needs in order to be able to start to heal from her trauma. The mental health representation we have in the book through the exploration of the PTSD and trauma Penny has is truly fantastic and a really sets Six Times We Almost Kissed apart from other YA books. As it covers so many hard-hitting topics, the book does have a number of content warnings and I have listed what I consider to be the key ones in the information above. Tess Sharpe posted an in-depth content warning list on her blog, which you can find here.

We have two really strong female leads in Penny and Tate and I instantly warmed to the both of them. Whilst I adored Penny’s love of bullet journalling and the real journey of character development she goes on throughout the book, Tate was my personal favourite character. I found her character really endearing and found it so sweet that she would drop everything whenever Penny needed her. I do wish we’d had more exploration of her passion for swimming though as it became a bit of an insignificant detail in the story.

Although it doesn’t take away from it being a five-star read for me, I did struggle with the structure of the narrative. The story is told through a dual perspective narrative and although I really enjoyed having both Penny and Tate’s perspectives as they provided really distinctive takes on the story, I didn’t like that was no pattern to whose chapter was whose. Whilst traditionally in a dual perspective narrative you might see the chapters alternate, in Six Times We Almost Kissed it flits between perspectives quite willy-nilly. I’m conscious that this is just something which goes against my personal preference and I did get used to it as the book progressed, which is why it hasn’t impacted on my star rating.

Overall, Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) is a beautiful queer love story which is incredibly heart-warming whilst also not being afraid to tackle some really hard-hitting topics. Although it’s a YA novel, I feel that adult readers such as myself can take so much from the story.

Have you read Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)? What did you think?