6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)

6 TIMES WE ALMOST KISSED (AND ONE TIME WE DID) is a slow-burn Young Adult romance. This book is told from two points of view, following Tate and Penny for about a month and a half as they learn to live together while their mothers are undergoing and recovering from surgery. The book also has flashbacks to the other times they almost kissed.

What I Loved:
Tate and Penny are both dealing with trauma from the lives that they’ve lived. Tess Sharpe did not shy away from the nitty, gritty details of the trauma that these characters were experiencing. They had emotional blowouts and fights. They ran from their problems and threw themselves into new activities to keep themselves sane. Tess allowed for the characters and readers to experience the emotional impact that the trauma and traumatic events had on these teenagers.

The romance between Tate and Penny felt very well explored. These two characters have an entire background behind them that we don’t experience, but the author adds in enough details to make their connection feel authentic. The romance that readers are shown just adds to that depth. Tate and Penny are given a complex relationship that isn’t always smooth sailing.

The pacing of this book was handled extremely well. When balancing a current and past timeline, it can be difficult at times to get a good flow. The author managed to find the correct balance for this novel. Past events were revealed at times that made sense within the scope of the story. The tension and reveal were built-up and executed properly.

What Left Me Wanting More:
I thought the ending of the book was well-paced and decently well-handled. I think there could have been more time given to the characters interacting with their moms, especially Penny. It very well may have been intentional to leave that thread loose and it still works. But I think it would have been more impactful to see at least some of the aftereffects of what had happened in the last few chapters.

The timeline wasn’t very clear to me. The dates are clearly marked at the start of each chapter, but towards the end the healing and coming home timeline felt incorrect. This may have been an issue of the book not being clear enough, but it also may not have been. I fully acknowledge that this may have been an issue solely from my point of view.

Final Verdict:
6 TIMES WE ALMOST KISSED was an emotional ride. The author did not shy away from exploring the trauma that the characters had experienced and were experiencing in their lives. The characters were authentic teenagers, for better or worse, and the author made sure to give them time to grow and begin to heal. The romance did feel like a secondary genre at times, but it was written authentically to the characters. Despite a possibly wonky timeline, the pacing of the story was solid and allowed for important moments to be revealed at the correct time.

A slow-burn romance, 6 TIMES WE ALMOST KISSED managed to balance healing from trauma and forging a new(-ish) relationship.

6 TIMES WE ALMOST KISSED is a story about challenging family, falling in love, and finding your own path. Penny and Tate have a complicated relationship - they are not really friends, but since their mothers are best friends, as in give-your-organ-to-the-other friends, they have lived in each other's orbits, being there for a lot of things the other would rather forget. Penny's mother is giving Tate's mother some of her liver, a transplant desperately needed. However, the recovery time for both of them means funds will be tight, so they are moving in together.

Penny and Tate set some ground rules for their new lives on top of each other, but complicated feelings keep swirling. While everyone seems sure they will in their will-they-won't-they style of relationship, Penny and Tate are not ready to consider what that could mean.

What I loved: This was a much heavier read than I expected based on the synopsis. A major point of the plot has been the trauma both girls have experienced and their complicated mother-daughter relationships. This is particularly true for Penny. Her adolescence has been overrun by trauma and the way her mother reacted to it. She loves her mother while also feeling incredibly hurt and stressed by being around her. Her life has not been easy - and it has been tough with Tate having courtside seats to the whole mess.

The story jumps back to these key points in time when Tate really shows up for Penny, and their love for each other is showing through. While some of them were clearly almost-kisses, others were actually much deeper connections and understandings that irrevocably changed their lives. These deeper plots were quite moving and powerful, full of pain and angst but also showing resilience and how they moved forward. For readers who have experienced their own complex relationships with parents, this book will really resonate.

Penny's relationship with her mother is juxtaposed with Tate's, as though her mother has been very sick with the threat of death of hanging over her head, she manages to fuse emotional maturity and stability into the discussions she has with the girls. These themes around family and complicated relationships/emotions, the power of trauma to make or break you, the importance of therapy, the value of friends/found family, and the importance of connection really make this into an emotional story. I also really appreciated that both main characters were bi, which was not a rep that is seen super-commonly!

What left me wanting more: I struggled a bit with the relationship and understanding why they were so resistant to it. This was not fully explained to the reader, particularly in the later parts of the book as it builds to something that did not fully make sense. It was then tough to follow the outcomes from that and really get what was happening next and why. I am leaving this vague to avoid spoilers, but considering the book is described around their relationship, I wanted it to have a powerful and understandable path/ending. Perhaps, if you read it without expectations around the kisses or almost-kisses, it makes a bit more sense.

Final verdict: 6 TIME WE ALMOST KISSED is an emotional and heartfelt YA contemporary romance that I would recommend for people who enjoy deep reads about challenging family relationships and winding paths to love.