Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Sweetly Foreboding
The stories in Lips Touch: Three Times are told in a dreamy fairy tale tone, but there's something dark underneath the surface. In all of the stories, the tone is quite romantic—but at the same time, there's a sense that danger lurks just around the corner. The tone serves as a form of foreshadowing: It lets the reader know not to get too comfortable because evil is always waiting to pounce on the fair maidens who are the protagonists in each of the three stories. So as much as we get passages like this one, brimming with hope and happiness:
It was much easier than Kizzy would have thought, walking across town with a beautiful boy, talking about things like the fat content of elk mat and the aerodynamic quality of pizza, and about the jocks of St. Pock's, and superstition, and marshmallows, and death. (1.2.133)
We also get passages like this, which practically ooze foreboding:
But Kizzy was ripe for goblins, and if anything got her, it would probably be them. Already one had tracked the perfume of her longing past the surly billy goat to peer in her bedroom window. Already it was studying her every move and perfecting its disguise. (1.1.59)
The first passage features words like "easier" and "beautiful," while the second busts out "surly" and "disguise." In their combination, we both appreciate how swept up Kizzy is and how much danger she's in.