This book makes me wonder what thing (kissing?) is the mile marker in my life. ( )

Each human, each life, each story, each book…each kiss is unique and different. To be able to recall your life based upon kisses is a wondrous thing!

This astonishing anthology of essays ranges from childhood memories to adult recollections. However no matter the age, a kiss is never just a kiss. We are reminded of this in each essay. The lasting importance of a kiss is celebrated and appreciated, as it should be.

Sometimes it is a kiss we needed. Sometimes it is a kiss that we never receive, that matters most to us. A kiss can be a beginning, or a final farewell. A kiss can comfort us, be a stabilizing force, or it may be something that simply keeps us going.

Ms. Sternbach offers a beautifully written and creative memoir. This one is definitely meant to be shared…just like a kiss. ( )

For the full review go to WellReadWife.com.

I was very excited to finally get a chance to read Claudia Sternbach’s Reading Lips: A Memoir of Kisses, and I was not disappointed. Reading Lips covers a broad expanse of Sternbach’s life. From tumbling off the roof of her elementary school and living to tell about it all the way to her struggle with cancer in her adult years, Sternbach never misses a beat. She manages to keep the reader in the palm of her hand as she shares a life story that performs a spirited dance between humor and sadness. ( )

Everyone's life is made up of small moments. Sometimes we keep a torn ticket stub to commemorate a moment. Sometimes it's a corsage. Sometimes a snatch of a song on the radio sparks a memory. Or a smell brings an indelible moment back to us. In Sternbach's beautiful and honest memoir, it is the kisses, those given, received, and even those memorable in their absence, that define the moments of her life. She brings to life the anticipation of a first kiss, the kisses given by family, kisses of benediction, of grief, of possibilities, of hope, and of the future.

Told in small, self-contained chapters set at different stages in Sternbach's life and told in her own voice at the appropriate age, this memoir sparkles. Her tale isn't one of extraordinary events or outstanding accomplishments, although no doubt her life has held its share of those as well, but instead it focuses on the small moments that shaped her and made her the writer she is today. The unifying theme of kisses neatly threads together what otherwise might seem to be isolated and mostly unrelated instances from her life. What the central theme does though, is tease out the connections.

All love is equally freighted here: familial, romantic, and platonic; all equally formative. The stories that Sternbach tells about her life are charming and universal. She captures the feelings behind each of the moments very carefully and authentically and the manner in which she writes of these feelings invites the reader to relive his or her own small moments alongside the narrative. A quick and delightful read, this would be a wonderful book to read with a group of old friends, those who have known you forever and can remind you of those kisses, literal and figurative that you might have forgotten. It would also be wonderful to read with new friends with whom you could build bonds over personal but universal tales like the one Sternbach has so kindly shared with her readers. ( )

Originally I accepted Reading Lips for review only because of the publisher-Unbridled Books. Unbridled publishes some truly remarkable books, and despite the fact that I was over run with memoirs I picked this one up. I am glad that I did. Claudia Sternbach’s memoir Reading Lips was an adorable, fun read that takes a unique look at how our life stories can be told.

One area where Sternbach shines is in her style. Reading Lips is told mostly in chronological order, and Sternbach skillfully changes her voice defining each time period exactly. In the early moments I was reminded of the voice used in Room, and I was intrigued to see the subtle changes she made throughout the chapters to show her own age and the era as well.

There was one hang up with Reading Lips that I had to escape though. Early in the book, I found the plot ordinary, plain. I found Sternbach’s concept-telling her life story through kisses-intriguing, but I wanted more action, more uniqueness. But then it hit me.

The point of this memoir was not that Sternbach is a successful writer. Reading Lips was not focused on the fact that she has had several marriages, or the fact that she has traveled to the moon (okay this last one isn’t true). The point of Reading Lips is that there are moments that change us, all of us. Small moments. And kisses, from parents and loves, exist in these moments.

Claudia Sternbach allowed me to relive my “kissable moments” while truly existing in hers. ( )