A Thousand Boy Kisses

Love in young adult romance novels is often portrayed as intense and serious rather than fleeting or temporary. Poppy and Rune are even portrayed as “soul mates,” challenging the idea that teenage romances inevitably fade with time.

The early start to Poppy and Rune’s relationship is critical to its later intensity and distinguishes their love story from preconceptions readers may have about short-lived adolescent romances. When Rune first comes to Georgia, he resents moving to America but thinks, “Maybe Georgia won’t be so bad after all […] not if I have Poppy Litchfield as my very best friend” (5). Poppy and Rune are not just lovers but “very best friends,” implying deep compatibility. Moreover, the fact that they are drawn to one another as young children suggests their relationship is not principally based in physical attraction. As they grow older, Rune and Poppy go everywhere together and routinely spend their nights together—behavior that more closely resembles that of a married couple than an adolescent fling. All of this lays the groundwork for the intense love that lasts into the afterlife of the novel.

Though the novel does invoke the more usual understanding of teenage romances, it does so to generate conflict.