Review: Touch by Jus Accardo

Title: Touch
Author: Jus Accardo
Series: Denazen #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance/YA
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Publication Date: October 1st, 2011
Edition: ebook, 262 pages

Source: Purchased

Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM


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."

This book started out differently from most books that have a female protagonist. Deznee (Dez) Cross is not your typical 17-year-old girl. She is a little foul-mouthed, likes to party, and is an adrenaline junkie (skating off roofs, bungee jumping, you name it). Kale has spent most of his life locked up in the Denazen corporation where they used him as a weapon.

I liked how this book started, I like most of the characters. Our main characters, I really liked them, I liked Brandt. Heck, I even liked the villains, the rest I am still a little 'Meh' about. They were either underdeveloped or the importance was over-exaggerated for the first book.

The plot was also a little different, that most while Dez is our main character I never really felt as though everything that happened focused on her and that she was the only one that could fix anything. I hate it when authors write books and make their main characters into "god-like" characters. Never making mistakes, and always doing the right thing. Dez is a screw-up, and she kind of knows it. She knows she doesn't have the answers, but she still tries to do the right thing.

Kale sounds hot, even though he doesn't know a lot about the modern outside world and how people behave. But his innocence is endearing and kind of makes you really love his character. Even though his experience with girls is non-existent he still treats Dez the way every girl wants to be treated, like they are precious.  And someone who has been hurt as much as Dez has, you get why she fell so hard so fast for him. I mean they were only "together" for like.. two weeks tops. While there was obviously a romance in this book, it didn't exactly take center stage and take away from the rest of the stuff that was going on. It had more to do with Kale experiencing his first kiss, and a couple of other firsts, with Dez.

A good majority of this book was Dez running around trying to get her mom back and keep Kale from getting caught again, by trying to trick her dad. Of course, it doesn't work out the way she planned because that would be too easy. The ending, I guess calling it a battle isn't too far fetched, was a little overdone in a way. I don't know how to feel about the ending. While it wasn't bad, at the same time I'm not sure if I liked it or not. Maybe it seemed this way because I was kind of tired while reading it but too stubborn to put the book down, but I got a little confused during some parts. Reading a fight scene in a first-person format, when the person isn't really even fighting doesn't give me the best mental picture of things. I enjoyed this book, and I want to read the rest of the series because I am genuinely curious as to what will happen next and where the story will go, I'm just not eager to rush out and find the rest of the books that are out. (According to Goodreads, there are two more to come out to make it a 5 book series.)