The Kiss

Rating:
Summary: "Incest" is a tantalizing pigeon-hole, but not the
Review: Buy this book because the reviewers are outraged that an adultdaughter committed incest with her Father. It's a juicy topic. HowDARE they! Then watch yourself, at the hands of this incredibly talented author, get wrenched in an emotional storm like you've never felt before. Kathryn Harrison is holding up a mirror. So you haven't committed incest? Ah, well, I bet you see yourself on these pages anyway. We are, ALL of us, starved for love and approval. And we haven't the slightest notion just exactly how far we'll go to get it. The author's particular talent is in using the words such that the emotions they evoke drown out the words. I'm no literature student by any stretch, but I've not had any other author "strum my strings" like this one. This is an "important" book. And any review of it I've read can't come close to doing it justice.

Rating:
Summary: Don't judge until you read....
Review: I heard about this book when the author appeared on a prime time show to discuss it...I was skeptical at first, but intrigued by her interview and bought 'The Kiss' the next day. I finished it before I went to sleep that night and thought about how ironically pure her words and memory were about the incestuous affair she had with her own father. I was deeply saddened by her story and misjudged her. She writes from the heart onto the pages and bares her soul. It is a powerfully painful story, but one that should be told. Read it with an open mind and an open heart

Rating:
Summary: Caught On Sale-And Loved It
Review: Though it is deeply desturbing, it is reality in every sense of the word. Written in truth and honesty it will grip your heart tightly and make your emotions come alive. Well worth the time to listen if you buy the audio. The story line speaks in similarity to that of Nightmares Echo (book) and a bit like Lost Boy (also in book format). All excellent courageous reads

Rating:
Summary: Incest
Review:
The book is an emtional look through the eyes of an incest survivor. The book is well written and accounts the life filled with manipulations. I am absolutely amazed that this child found the courage to survive.
Also recommend: Nightmares Echo by Katlyn Stewart


Rating:
Summary: The Kiss, a haunting truth...
Review: This book is about the struggle of a girl that wanted to liberate herself from her unloving mother and her obsessive father. Kathryn grew up with her grandparents and her emotionally distant mother. Her mother was always too busy, involved in herself, sleeping, and lived in a world that her daughter did not take part in. She met her father 20 years into her life, when she was entering college. Seeking that comfort and love, she involved herself in an affair with her own father. That sense of belonging and love made her feel secure, but the truth was unbearable, even for her to handle.
I would definitely recommend this book to people of all ages, especially young adults and teenagers. The topic is disconcerting, yet makes you reflect on your own life. Once you start reading, you won't want to put it down. It's written in a simplistic way, yet integrated me in it as if I was the protagonist. There were parts that were so emotionally disturbing, that they brought tears to my eyes. I can't express how much admiration I have for Kathryn. She's an admirable person for dealing with such a burden, at such a young age. It has made me realize how lucky I've been and that what I have experienced is nothing in comparison to her story.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbs, Disrupts, and Polarizes the public readers
Review: This book's title is The Kiss, by Kathryn Harrison. This memoir is powerful, it's about the soul of a young girl and a terrible injury that happened between her and a man who should of protected her. Every so often a book come a long that will leave its readers disturbed, disrupted, and left in shock. A young girl had an unusual relationship with her father. A relationship that should not happen, she felt accepted only when she was with her father. Her father had a keen sense in making her feel welcome and accepted. That was the reason why she felt this love; hate feeling when she was around him. It was like she felt loved by him, but new the relationship was not right, nor it would not work out.
I would recommend this book to young adults. I only say young adults because its context. They would feel sorry for this poor girl and feel a need to reach out and help young girls who are the exact same way. It made me realized how bad certain people have it and how lucky people are to have good lives. This book made me stronger and I know feel more powerful. I know what is right from wrong and how to stand on my own two feet. So yes I would recommend this book to young adults that need help with the same things that I did. Hopefully the people who read it will feel more at ease with their lives.


Rating:
Summary: A FATHER/DAUGHTER TABOO...
Review: This is an elegantly written memoir, searingly painful, yet, at the same time, strangely compelling, about a young woman who grew up in a dysfunctional household, raised primarily by her grandparents. Her undemonstrative mother, who lived apart from her daughter during her formative years, was emotionally distant, and her father, from whom her mother was divorced, was physically absent.

When she was reunited with her father at the age of twenty, her hunger for love and affection was such that an unfatherly kiss led to a consensual and obsessive sexual affair with her biological father, an ordained minister. It was an obsession in which her own mother was seemingly complicit, treating her daughter as if she were a rival for the affection of the man that they both loved. The author's unseemly obsession with her father would torment and haunt her for years.

This is a beautifully told story about a parental betrayal so incomprehensible that it will leave the reader aghast. The author infuses the book with a sadness that is heartbreakingly palpable. Her evocative and lyrical prose, spare and intense, elevates this otherwise sordid and tawdry tale, making it a haunting memoir of a past that is best forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: French Kisses
Review: I did enjoy this book don't misunderstand. I read it one day. She writes flowery and passionate. Huge subject matter she tackles with a deep longing and sadness. "...one Kiss. An instant, seemingly discrete and isolated in time, yet paradoxically so, for the kiss has grown. It is like a vast, glittering wall between me and everything else.." I love every character in this complex novel. I just didn't love it enough to read her other works. In all a cleansing novel for a girl a bit too apologetic for her experiences.