Author, Tillie Cole, is either a mastermind or delusional. She finds a way to capture heartbreak and forever love in a mere 352 pages. In A Thousand Boy Kisses, love between two teenagers is stronger than marriages between 50-year-olds. Yet, with this kind of love always comes unbearable, earth-shattering heartbreak.
This novel follows Rune and Poppy through their “meet-cute” at the age of five until their teenage years, using the unique changing of character perspectives. A Thousand Boy Kisses combines three highly adored storylines: childhood friends to lovers, the girl next door, and the changed bad boy. I’ve never seen such beautifully blended lives or teenagers so sure of what they want. In Chapter 11, Poppy’s aunt, Aunt DeeDee, helps Rune pull off the surprise of a lifetime, which is when she realizes how deeply teenagers can love.
“I don’t think, in all my life, that I’ve ever seen two kids love each other so hard so young, and even harder as teens,” Aunt DeeDee says.
A friend gifted me this book for Christmas. She told me to read it when I was ready to dive into emotions. I didn’t believe her because I would not consider myself a particularly emotional person. By page 12, I was already in tears. The couple is confronted with death and illness early in their lives, leaving two options — hide from life or live it. Poppy yearns for adventures worth remembering, and after losing her favorite person, she is thrust into a new adventure: finding herself and deepening her true love. Rune, too, realizes that to experience every part that life has to offer, he would have to live every moment to the fullest.
“Because sometimes all we get are moments. There are no do-overs; whatever happens in a moment defines life—perhaps it is life,” Rune says.
Rune and Poppy’s relationship makes me believe in finding a true, unconditional soulmate. The two are each other’s very best friends. They prioritize each other and memories that they can take to their graves. Instead of focusing on the negatives, Rune and Poppy decide to live a life worth remembering. Knowing each other so well comes along with curating surprises the other will never forget. I fell in love with the idea of having a best friend who knows you better than you know yourself. Poppy knows that she has found that person because when they are together, they cannot be separated. They are two halves that create a whole.
“He kissed me until there was no part of me that didn’t know who it belonged to. He kissed me until my heart again fused with his—two halves of one whole,” Poppy says.
Between the kisses that left Poppy’s heart “to almost burst” and the cherry blossom grove where the two grow their love into something forever, Rune and Poppy have love figured out. The part that they still have to master is how to lose each other.
A Thousand Boy Kisses is a novel worth reading. The way that Tillie Cole captures love so earth-shatteringly is pure talent. Whether you choose to believe this kind of love is possible or not, I recommend reading this to see what it would look like in a dream world—a world where people don’t die and there are always more “heart-bursting” kisses to write down.
