Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)

“We’re not friends. We’ve never been friends.”
“We’ve never been enemies either,” Penny says.
She’s right.
What we were… I used to think it was maybe undefinable. That a word to describe this constant crossing of paths and reluctantly entwined lives didn’t exist.
I don’t think that anymore.
I think there’s a word for it.

Wow. Such a beautiful book. I went in expecting a YA romance with some family drama on the side, but instead the romance here is intertwined with such a thoughtful exploration of trauma and grief and how both can alter family dynamics. I was so engrossed not just in Penny and Tate’s relationship development, but in everything that accompanied it and in all the layers of their backstory. It was so interesting to see this place they were coming from: not friends, even though they’ve known each other all their lives as their mothers have such a strong friendship they’re practically family; not enemies, even though they’re pretty different and often rile each other up; not exactly united by a common goal until the book starts, but always dealing with various aspects of the same situations. There’s this balance of distance and familiarity that really made their connection work for me.

Penny was my favorite character here. I really liked how PTSD was handled and my heart absolutely broke for her because of her relationship with her mother. At the same time, it was very clear that her mother was acting out of grief, not out of spite, and struggling with her own trauma—except she was doing it in that terrible way some people have when they’re too scared to process and make a path through their grief: dragging others, specifically Penny, with her, preventing Penny from healing, forcing her to carry all the emotional load. And I absolutely loved Tate, too, with her quiet strength, her emotional maturity, the way she found it so natural to both be mad at someone for what they did wrong and want to help them with whatever they’re suffering, her ability to stand up to a bad situation and say as loudly as it needs to be said, This is fucked up.

There are things that aren’t our fault, but how we deal with them in the aftermath is our responsibility, and this book really drives this point home. But it never feels moralizing—it feels real and alive.

I also want to take a moment to appreciate how skillfully multiple timelines are handled here. Tess Sharpe has a real knack for creating narratives like this, weaving together these different story threads to form a narrative that hits all the right nerves at all the right points. And then there’s also the additional thread that involves the girls’ friends banding up to help and gradually developing their own unexpected romance that was a joy to read, providing a bit of emotional relief when things got heavy in the main story but never detracting attention from it. It’s this whole landscape of foreshadowing and reveals, setting up deliberate gaps and then filling them, and when I finished the book I just had to sit there for a moment looking back and admire the level of craft that went into it.

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sbennett28's review

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emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Just a really sweet gay romance, but also looking at family relationships, grief and healing. I just loved this ugh

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xabbeylongx's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Spoilers Ahead:

This is a sapphic enemies-to-lovers book… need I say more? I was hooked from the blurb.

We follow Penny and Tate, whose mothers are best friends. A bit of context for our main characters: Tate’s mum is extremely ill, and has been battling different illnesses for a while, and Penny’s mum has been disregarding Penny’s mental health after the accident with her father, in which he sadly passed. She drew away from Penny, and instead went to Tate’s mum, as they’ve always been that close.

When Penny’s mum drops the bomb that she is going to be giving Tate’s mum part of her liver, Penny is shocked, because she wasn’t involved with the decision, and there was not a lot of time to think it through. Penny and Tate have to be there for each other, which is difficult as they both get on each other’s nerves. Tate’s mum suspects something between them, and Penny goes along with it, because otherwise it would mean one of her secrets getting passed on to her mother, and Penny can’t have that.

The mums make it through, and they all move in together to save money. Penny is worried, as she hasn’t live with her mum for ages, as she’s quite difficult. As soon as she comes home, Penny finds one of her paintings (that she was going to sell) about their accident.

She was going to profit off Penny’s grief.

Penny stood up for herself, though. She had such a good character arc, and she’s a better person than me, because I would’ve snapped longgggg before that.

Eventually Tate’s mum comes home, but not before Penny and Tate argue because she finds out about Penny not telling Tate’s mum the truth to save herself. She’s very angry. They do make up in the end, and Tate helps her to get through everything that she’s been going through mentally. They help each other, as they always do.

Like the name suggests, they’ve always been drawn to each other, and there has been plenty of times in which they could have kissed, but they didn’t. This time, however, outside a truck they broke down in, they did. They kiss, and they finally admit their feelings, and they start to take control of their own lives. A very sweet ending, honestly.

I thought this book was a little dry. I’m biased, as I absolutely adore sapphic novels, and enemies to lovers? Yes please. However, I felt the hatred was half-hearted. Obviously, a lot better than them being toxic (although arguably, they still were) but like where is the spice? Why am I not jumping for joy at the thought of them talking? It just felt a bit meh to me, so it was okay, but not the best.

I have a personal hatred for Penny’s mum… she has no redeeming qualities. She deserves to never be forgiven, and nothing can make what she did okay. Just all of her actions, not even just her paintings.

There’s a few things that I thought were a little unnecessary, like their friend’s relationships (where did it come from, and why is it there?) and honestly, it felt like the right pieces to a puzzle but they didn’t fit. I don’t know what was missing. I guess it missed that exciting spark I need to have to really love a book. It was okay, but nothing special - hence why it took me absolutely ages to finish reading it (it was such a relief when I’d finished).

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lithoerary_atria's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

i have 4% charge left on my phone so i'll try to be brief.

please check the trigger warnings for this one. this is not really a cute summery romcom!! there's ableism, character death, graphic scene of character death & injury, grief from losing a loved one, bad parenting, ptsd, major surgery of a loved one etc. go into this book taking your mental health into account!!

now if the formalities are over with, onto my review:

THIS BOOK WAS MADE FOR ME!!! like handcrafted & thought for me idcidcidc. i just, god, the characters are SOOOOO human and flawed and i was crying so many times & my herat was in my throat because god, this felt tooooo real. tess sharpe didn't hold back AT ALL. like ok here's the thing, this is the PERFECT™ love story for me. the way the entirety of their relationship is shown ughhh it's sooo *screams & starts chewing on walls*.

the scenes where they are comforting each other but can't say what they feel for each other while DESPERATELY pining for each other is just TOP TIER!! THE YEARNING, THE PINING, THE EMOTIONS, THE WAY THESE BITCHES FUCKING TOUCH EACH OTHER & HUG EACH OTHER (SHE'S THE ONLY ONE THAT PENNY ALLOWS TO TOUCH HER HANDS!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS SHIT!!!!) BUT STILL CANNOT SAY WHAT THEY THINK BECAUSE THEY'RE AFRAID OF THE CONSEQUENCES & THERE'S TOO MUCH HISTORY ON THEIR SIDES — i'm telling you once again this book was written for me actually idec about anyone else.

the romance aside, this is also such a brilliant depiction of grief and complex familial relationships and it hurts to see both penny & lottie hurt each other because they're both grieving and neither of them can't help themselves and there's so much anger and love in here, both of them at the exact same time, they both wrong each other in so many ways but it's sooo realistically portrayed. it's all just done so so so well. it's so dysfunctional and it was just portrayed sooo well (also penny's last thoughts about how she wants to have a relationship with her mom but it seems growing apart is inevitable and how we are left hanging at the end — it's so so so so so messy yet satisfying in its own way).

idk i have SOOOO many thoughts about this book — the portrayal of mother-daughter relationships (and oh the contrast between penny & tate and lottie & anna killed me!!! it was so cruel but that is life), the romance, the fucking prose at some specific moments — all of them *chef's kiss*

idk girl just read it. this took me a month to read ('cause exams & college & life & mental health & global issues stuff) but i'm sooo glad i did read this!!! and my phone will switch off at any moment. so parting words: READ IT!!!

Content Warnings

sapphic_alpaca's review

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dark emotional funny reflective sad

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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jennalise13's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

damn what a slow burn but tate and penny’s chemistry was so good. also love a complicated mother daughter relationship!!

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