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We finally got around to reading Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and we weren't disappointed: It's haunting and brilliant and just so beautifully written. It's also a 166-page meditation on just how bad things can get when you're deficient in both sex ed and foreplay. And also? It contains the most visceral, disturbing description of a kiss that we've ever read. It makes our list of the Top 10 Things You Never Want to Hear After a First Kiss sound like glowing compliments. It's meant to, of course--McEwan's just that good. We defy you to fully enjoy a French kiss in the 24 hours after reading this excerpt (after the jump). Consider it the BookRabbit edition of 2 Girls, 1 Cup. (We had to watch like three John Hughes movies just to get in a kissing mood again.) ...

When they kissed she immediately felt his tongue, tensed and strong, pushing past her teeth, like some bully shouldering his way into a room. Entering her. Her own tongue folded and recoiled in automatic distaste, making even more space for Edward. He knew well enough she did not like this kind of kissing, and he had never before been so assertive. With his lips clamped firmly onto hers, he probed the fleshy floor of her mouth, then moved round inside the teeth of her lower jaw to the empty place where three years ago a wisdom tooth had crookedly grown until removed under general anaesthesia. ... It was the hard tapering tip of this alien muscle, quiveringly alive, that repelled her. ... He was under her tongue, pushing it up against the roof of her mouth, then on top, pushing down, then sliding smoothly along the sides and round, as though he thought he could tie a simple up-and-over knot. He wanted to engage her tongue in some activity of its own, coax it into a hideous mute duet, but she could only shrink and concentrate on not struggling, not gagging, not panicking. If she was sick into his mouth, was one wild thought, their marriage would be instantly over.

--from On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan