Series: Touch, book #1
Published: December 16th 2008 by Hyperion
Details: Hardcover, 252 pages
My rating: 4/5
My Summary:
Similar plot to Twilight, as in girl gets rescued by mysterious boy in near car accident at the school parking lot, then is teamed up as lab partners with said boy, who acts strange around her. But despite the similarities, it holds its own, because it is well written, with witty dialogue and with a very likable heroine. I really enjoyed this book. Sequel is called Deadly little lies.
My Full Review:
I heard from other reviewers that this book was a real page-turner. Which is exactly what it was. I read it in one sitting, and that was not my intention when I sat down with it.
When I first started reading it I was struck by the similarities to Twilight. Camelia, the heroine is saved in a near car accident at the school parking lot by a mysterious guy, then teamed up with said guy as lab partners in class. This guy, Ben, is mysterious and an outcast in school. And all though not vampire, he’s got this whole “if I get too close to you I might kill you” kind of thing going on. Pretty much like Twilight.
Yet, somehow it works, and I got sucked into the story anyway. A number of reasons to this:
Firstly, I liked the heroine. She’s witty, tough and has got a reasonable voice. I could feel myself agreeing with most of her decisions. Except for possibly putting herself into the most dangerous situations, but I guess there would be no story otherwise. I also grew fond of her two friends, real funny the way they kept bickering at each other.
There is also a stalker following Camelia, and his diary notes are inserted here and there so that we get to follow his twisted thoughts. That was really creepy and had me on the edge of my seat most of the time. The identity of the stalker is unknown. Of course, seeing as the weird phone calls and letters start about the same time as Ben arrives at her school makes Ben a primary suspect. Yet, we don’t know until the very end, and I for one, was surprised to find out who it was.
The one thing where it may have been lacking slightly for me was the chemistry between Camelia and Ben. Seeing as we don’t get to know that much about Ben it’s hard to follow how they are so connected. I didn’t feel it. Maybe it develops into something more in the following books. I hope so.
Ben’s strange abilities are also somewhat fuzzily explained, and I didn’t completely understand why it was so dangerous for him to be touching Camelia.
Nevertheless, because of great suspense and a likeable heroine I still very much enjoyed reading this first installment of the Touch series, and I look forward to reading the sequel Deadly Little Lies soon!
After Twilight... 
Hi!
your review made me curious and I read this book couple of days ago… it was quite interesting, I quite liked Ben, Camelia and all the other characters.
And I liked also that until the end you are not really sure who the stalker really is. Is it Ben? Is he actually trying to protect her? Did he really kill his ex girlfriend? He is a psychopath? A sweet and sensible boy?
One thing that I didn’t really enjoy was the fact that Camelia’s parents seems not to realize at all what’s going on in their house… I mean, are they living in a huge castle with thousand of room that they don’t realize someone broke in? Also how they can not realize Camelia is a bit stressed from what’s happening to her? Ok, they have other things in their mind but to me it looked a bit to “horror-movie-cliche” … the damsel in distress alone at home, no parents around, who receive horror phone calls,etc,etc…”
Anyway this is a minor thing. I enjoyed reading the book. I am not sure I want to read the sequel, thought, especially after reading your review… I don’t really want to read a photocopy of the previous book…
About what you said in your review (quote “I didn’t completely understand why it was so dangerous for him to be touching Camelia”) I suppose it was dangerous because when feeling through touch Ben was loosing any control of his strength and he might have been hurting Camelia very easily… probably even breaking or at least sprain some part of her body…
Hi!
Good to hear you read this book, and that you liked it, apart from the “horror cliches”. I completely agree, Camelia did everything she could possibly do to put herself in danger! But somehow, it still worked for me, and I was pretty spooked by her stalker.
In the sequel though, when another stalker showed up, it got a bit tiresome..I could forgive Camelia for behaving recklessly the first time, but to repeat it all over again in the sequel? No thank you. And her parents remain blissfully ignorant in the sequel too!
As for that whole touching business, thanks for explaining. Still not totally clear but it’s because I’m not getting exactly what kind of powers Ben has. So it’s a bit fuzzy. Anyways, great as always to hear your thoughts!
Tess
Uhm… after reading what you say about the sequel I am quite sure I am not going to read it…
^^;
It’s very very nice to talk to you!!!! Thank you for all your advices and reviews!!!
🙂
Well, the same! Great to hear your thoughts and get your book tips, I really appreciate it!!