Piece Comment

Review of First Love & First Kiss


Adorable. The range of voices here is impressive. Alix Blair captures what's awkward, sweet, and terrifying about the first kiss, transmitting that through young and old alike. The standouts are her bookends, the nine year-old whose criteria for love are as simple as can be, and the elderly woman ("Kip," love it) whose first kiss was as chaste as can be.

As with the best pieces, what I was left with was a question: where was my own first kiss? What was I doing? Did I blow it or was I the romantic wunderkind I remember? Was it as wonderful or as harrowing as those depicted here? Any radio piece that gets one thinking along those lines is worth a repeat listen. Nicely done.