Rowena’s review of The Last Best Kiss by Claire LaZebnik.

Anna Eliot is tired of worrying about what other people think. After all, that was how she lost the only guy she ever really liked, Finn Westbrook.

Now, three years after she broke his heart, the one who got away is back in her life.

All Anna wants is a chance to relive their last kiss again (and again and again). But Finn obviously hasn’t forgotten how she treated him, and he’s made it clear he has no interest in having anything to do with her.

Anna keeps trying to persuade herself that she doesn’t care about Finn either, but even though they’ve both changed since they first met, deep down she knows he’s the guy for her. Now if only she can get him to believe that, too….

With her signature wit and expertly authentic teen voice, Claire LaZebnik (the author of fan favorites Epic Fail and The Trouble with Flirting) once again breathes new life into a perennially popular love story. Fans of Polly Shulman, Maureen Johnson, and, of course, Jane Austen will love this irresistibly funny and romantic tale of first loves and second chances.

I haven’t read anything by Claire LaZebnik before but I’ve always wanted to and when I saw this book come up for review, I was all in.

This book follows Anna Eliot as she tries to move on from being a complete jerk to the first boy that she’s ever really liked.  As a freshman, Anna carpooled with her sister, a friend of her sisters and Finn Westbrook. Finn was full of random facts and disgusting but interesting pictures and Anna liked him.  The only problem standing in their way was that Anna’s friends weren’t fans of Finn because Finn was a nerd and Anna, being young and dumb didn’t stand up to her friends about Finn. She liked him and she liked being with him when they weren’t at school but once there, she ignored him. She kept Finn separate from her other friends and eventually that caught up with her…and it didn’t end well for her.

Finn moved away and she never got to make things right, until Finn moves back and all of a sudden, the nerd that she knew and loved in ninth grade, is cooler and polished and her friends like him. Only, Finn does not like Anna, at all.

And she gets it. She understands it. But she’s still sorry about all of it and over the course of the book, you see the growth in Anna’s character. You see her deal with the feeling she still has for Finn. You see her deal with the fact that Finn is irresistible to girls and you see her trying to make things right.

I really liked Senior year Anna. She was a far cry from Freshman year Anna. She learned lessons that shaped the way her life turned out and I cheered my ass off for her. She was genuinely a good person and I liked that we got to see the change come over her.

As a first book from a new author, I really enjoyed this one. I thought LaZebnik captured a realistic picture of how teenagers deal with peer pressure, their problems and their thought processes. There were times when I wanted to wring Anna’s neck but there were also times when I wanted to smack some sense into Finn as well but in the end, I closed the book and was happy with the story that I got.

Anna’s friends was a great mix of crazy, fun and cool. They weren’t perfect but they worked for each other and they stuck by each other through the ups and the downs, which is something that I appreciated. Far too often, I’m reading about backstabbing jerks who pose as best friends so it was good to see a cool collection of great friends.

I will definitely be reading more from this author and I definitely recommend this book to fans of contemporary YA stories. This was a great story with a cast of characters that was interesting and fun to get to know and a main protagonist that you will become a fan of. Kudos to LaZebnik on writing a very engaging story that was fun to be apart of.

Grade: 4 out of 5

This book is available from Harper Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.