Review: Only a Kiss by Ines Bautista-Yao

Title: Only A Kiss
Author: Ines Bautista-Yao
Publication: November 29, 2014 by Chamber Shell Publishing  
Source: Publisher / Oops! I Read A Book Again Book Tours 
Date Read: January 19 to 20, 2015  
Rating: ★★★★☆

When she was nine-years-old, Katie knew she wanted Chris to give her her first kiss. It wasn’t because she was in love with him (no way, he was her best friend! Besides, she was in love with his fourteen-year-old big brother), it was because she could make him do anything she wanted.
Besides, it didn't really mean anything. It was only a kiss after all.
But then things started to change. They grew up. They parted ways and went to different high schools. And other girls and boys—well, just one particular boy—came into the picture, throwing their lives upside down.
Told from the alternating points of view of Katie and Chris, this love story between two best friends will tug at your heartstrings and leave you thinking how the simplest things can mean so much.

Review:

The blurb of Only A Kiss did not hide to us that this is a friends-to-lovers story, more so, a bestfriend-turned-lovers story. It tells the tale of Chris and Katie, best of friends since they were toddlers and we obviously can derive from the blurb that they will fall in love, whether with each other, that's for you to find out.

I stopped liking friends-to-lovers stories (albeit I've read Love, Rosie and Fall Like Rain just recently) because people around me always misconstrue it with me being able to relate since I'm madly in love with my best friend. I love Frederick - that's a fact. In love with him? I don't know. So as to stop everyone from teasing me I stayed away from these kind of story, what made me read Only A Kiss though is the fact that it was written by a Filipino writer. I haven't read anything from Ines B. Yao, I have her books at home though.

Chris and Katie is just too real for me. Basically, because the dynamics of their friendship is same as what my bestfriend and I have.

Frederick and I met when were four but we didn't get along until we were fourteen.

The story gripped me from the start and truth be told, this is one of the few books I almost finished in one sitting. I was convinced that I will be giving these five perfect stars until things turned complicated. Not because I don't like complicated, it's just that I suddenly realized that Chris and Katie's life is just too perfect and now is the only time we will have a glimpse of pain and hurt. 

I've said this again and again that the test of a good romance story for me is how the author will make me believe that his or her characters are really in love, in this book, I don't know, I just want to believe that they are in love because they've always been but that would mean, I'm in love with my best friend as well, so I don't know. Also, I don't like the turning point where Chris realized that he is in love with Katie. It would work if this is a movie, like a slowmo version of what transpired in the book would really be great, but if this is the thoughts of Chris we are hearing, and then I'd be like, ohmygod, you just like her because you finally can consider her pretty. And as for Katie, we can only guess and wonder why she finally realized she is in love with Chris and then didn't break up with Andrew just because and waited for years and years because... yeah she's that selfish confused.

All the more, I just feel the ending is a little bit hurried, we weren't even given an insight on how people around them reacted when they finally got together, I mean, those are the cutesy stuff! I wouldn't want to miss that!

But still, FOUR FREAKING STARS!!! For making me feel the feels!!

P.S.

I like it that it came full circle as it also ended with a wedding!