Review: Touch by Jus Accardo

Touch by Jus Accardo

Steph’s Rating: 3 stars

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Format: Paperback

Publisher: EntangledTeen

Publication Date: November 1st, 2011

Pages: 284

Goodreads Synopsis:

When a strange boy tumbles down a river embankment and lands at her feet, seventeen-year-old adrenaline junkie Deznee Cross snatches the opportunity to piss off her father by bringing the mysterious hottie with ice blue eyes home.

Except there’s something off with Kale. He wears her shoes in the shower, is overly fascinated with things like DVDs and vases, and acts like she’ll turn to dust if he touches her. It’s not until Dez’s father shows up, wielding a gun and knowing more about Kale than he should, that Dez realizes there’s more to this boy—and her father’s “law firm”—than she realized.

Kale has been a prisoner of Denazen Corporation—an organization devoted to collecting “special” kids known as Sixes and using them as weapons—his entire life. And, oh yeah, his touch? It kills. The two team up with a group of rogue Sixes hellbent on taking down Denazen before they’re caught and her father discovers the biggest secret of all. A secret Dez has spent her life keeping safe.

A secret Kale will kill to protect.

Steph’s Review: *minor spoilers*

I had a lot of hesitation when it came to starting this book. If you noticed, this was on my to-read/currently widget for about a month before I actually got around to reading it. I’ve heard great things about Touch, but I’ve also heard bad things too. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to it. After I finished it, I felt there were things I really enjoyed, but parts that made no sense to me. It just wasn’t a completed circle.

Deznee Cross has been lied to her whole life. Her father’s so called “law-firm” is really in institute that collects “specially” mutated people with special abilities, and trains them to be assassins for the government or the such. Kale, an escapee, somehow finds his way to her and together they must bring down this corporation once and for all before any other people are dragged into the mess and get hurt.

This is the first time I’m going to do a “list” review, where I’m going to talk about stuff I liked and stuff I didn’t like in separate parts. The parts I really enjoyed would’ve gotten this a really high rating from me, but there were several things that detracted, and I just couldn’t overlook them. So, I’ll go ahead with good news first:

What I liked:

Action and Plot

Touch is filled first page to last with non-stop action. It was heart wrenching and it made me so excited while reading this book. I think this is what made me like it the most. Jus Accardo is really great at building up suspense and just making it explode in your face! I honestly didn’t see any of her major plot twists coming, and the mystery completely enthralled me. I admit, I had my brows furrowed and mouth open at some points in Touch.

Kale

This poor boy has a completely tortured soul, and I really, really love him. I wished I lived in the Denazen world just so I would be able to heal him. He is a Six, who has run away from his captor Denazen, a institution for special mutated humans. It was really funny to watch him learn about the world outside of the one he grew up in, which lead to some pretty awkward, but cute, situations.

Deznee

This girl knows exactly what she’s doing. At first, I really didn’t like her at all from her constant brattiness and naivety. But as Touch goes on, she becomes a really courageous and strong heroine of this series. She’s funny, independent, and a great narrator too! She is probably my favorite character in Touch, so far.

What I didn’t like:

It’s more like these things didn’t matter very much while I was reading, but when I really thought over the book, these are the things I wished were different.

Insta-love

I think that speaks for itself. I like Kale and Deznee as their own characters, but not the relationship they have. Some people like it/are okay with it, I’m not one of them. Um, unrealistic much?

“Partying”

Okay, Accardo’s casual use of partying all the time bugged me so much. I’m pretty sure the average high school student does not know every bar and party hot spot in the town, and is acquaintances with all these random college kids who know how to party it up. I’m pretty sure there isn’t even a college in Deznee’s town too. This is kind of me being picky though, and probably other readers won’t care about this at all.

The Big, Bad Secret

I can’t let this secret out, but let’s just say it really ticked me off. In other reviews, I said I hated it when authors make their protagonist “too special”, because in reality nobody would be as lucky as them. Lets just say Deznee’s super secret can be applied to that.

Cliche, much?

Touch of Death huh? Running away from the evil corporation? This reminded me so much of Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Cursed (click for our review!), that I found it really found the supernatural twist to Touch a bit bland.

Overall, Touch was just okay. There are some things about that make it attractive and a good read, but there are holes in it that just made this feel like it was missing some “oomph”. I’m sure many people would fall in love with this book, and I’m also sure there are people who would just stop reading after the first 30 pages. I would recommend this if you are looking for something relatively short and interesting, just an everyday read. I’m going to give Toxic (Denazen #2) a try, to see what Accardo does with the world she created.