Kiss Me First

The proliferation of mobile phones, the Internet and social media have played havoc with a lot of traditional plotlines, forcing many writers to immediately isolate their protagonists from any wireless network coverage before their story can begin. This is not the case with Lottie Moggach’s debut novel Kiss Me First which embraces new media with a playful vehemence laid out in a clean, crisp prose style.

Moggach’s protagonist is the young, intelligent, computer-savvy but socially inept Leila who becomes obsessed by an online chatroom for budding philosophers known as Red Pill. When Leila makes her positive views on euthanasia known, she is immediately taken under the wing of the chatroom founder who persuades her to embark on an unusual venture. Leila is to take on the online identity of Tess, a woman who quietly wants to slip away and die without telling her friends and family.

The way in which Leila creates Tess’s profile and character from her Internet viewing and purchasing habits possesses all the skills and powers of deduction of a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. Moggach has Leila do this with great panache, humour and engaging insight as in  '…. [Tess] had three hundred and sixty-seven [Facebook] friends which, looking at her friends’ profiles, seemed about average for her generation.'

However, while social media might be the framework for this novel, it is not the heart. This is the story of a socially isolated young woman still grieving for the loss of her mother who suddenly finds meaning, hope and perhaps love in the lives of others. Kiss Me First is a refreshing, skilfully-handled novel very much of our times.