read by Imogen Church
For once, believe the hype. This
much-lauded debut thriller captures a startling and disturbing aspect of the
internet zeitgeist and provides a dark and twisted commentary on the Facebook
generation.
Leila is persuaded by the moderator
of a pseudo-philosophical website to assist in a ‘project’ – the suicide of
Tess, a woman she has never met. Leila must adopt Tess’s persona, learn about
her life, her tastes, the way she writes and thinks – get into her head, under
her skin. Leila must impersonate Tess, become Tess, so that Tess can, without
fuss, without recriminations, quietly shuffle off this mortal coil.
But the two women could not be more
different. Leila, grieving over her mother’s recent death, is inexperienced,
poorly educated, isolated and friendless. She is a size 16, lives in a
cheerless flat above an Indian restaurant in south-east London, and has never
been kissed. Tess has lived, and loved, and travelled. She is articulate,
witty, clever. She has refined tastes, smart friends and good looks. Hers is
the tag ‘kiss me first’: whatever that might mean.
Leila takes her work seriously, and
devotes herself full time to ‘being Tess’. Having taken over Tess’s email
account, she carries on online conversations with some of Tess’s contacts. It
is easy to lie online. And she’s good. She has studied hard and is convinced
she has cloned Tess’s style and wit. But Tess’s mother isn’t so easily fooled,
and Leila’s encounter with her is a waste land of pain. Then Leila starts to
believe that one of Tess’s former boyfriends will fall in love with her when
they meet – that he will accept that Tess is no more and that Leila can take
her place as virtual Tess. She engineers meetings, only to witness that he has
been creating his own virtual life online. In reality, he hasn’t separated from
the girl he married after Tess broke up with him. But Leila hasn’t prepared herself
for the crippling shock of his anger and revulsion when she finally comes out
to him.
And, in the end, who can say what
Tess was escaping from. Nor, of course, whether she went through with her part
of the arrangement.
Not to be missed, Kiss Me First is so much more than the
tale it tells. And the audiobook imparts the fiction with even more impact than
the printed page. Imogen Church is Leila.
And you will believe her every word.
* * * * *
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