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Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley

 
 

May 25, 2017

 

reviewed for

 

Jeri’s Book Attic

 
 

 

 

Title :              Close Enough to Touch

Author :           Colleen Oakley

Series :            n/a

Release date :   07 Mar 2017

Rating :           3 Stars

 

 

Blurb : From the author of Before I Go comes an unconventional love story perfect for fans of the emotional novels of Jodi Picoult and Jojo Moyes.One time a boy kissed me and I almost died… And so begins the story of Jubilee Jenkins, a young woman with a rare and debilitating medical condition: she’s allergic to other humans. After a humiliating near-death experience in high school, Jubilee has become a recluse, living the past nine years in the confines of the small town New Jersey house her unaffectionate mother left to her when she ran off with a Long Island businessman. But now, her mother is dead, and without her financial support, Jubilee is forced to leave home and face the world—and the people in it—that she’s been hiding from. One of those people is Eric Keegan, a man who just moved into town for work. With a daughter from his failed marriage who is no longer speaking to him, and a brilliant, if psychologically troubled, adopted son, Eric’s struggling to figure out how his life got so off-course, and how to be the dad—and man—he wants so desperately to be. Then, one day, he meets a mysterious woman named Jubilee, with a unique condition…Close Enough to Touch is an evocative, poignant, and heartrending exploration of the power and possibilities of the human heart.

 

Review : I really liked the plot idea of Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley, which is why I requested to read an advance copy. Never would I have expected to feel so strange during reading it. Because the plot idea really was good I have to admit that I totally do not like the leading characters. I could not connect with them.

 

While that might have happened to me before with one character in a story it rarely happens with both of them. I might be the odd one out here as I can guess that the disconnected way the characters were acting for a big part of the story might appeal to a certain kind of reader as it is one way of telling this particular story. It is not a bad one but it is not the way I like it.

 

Jubilee not only has her allergy as a “condition” but there is much more to her that is in-between her and LIVING and for me it felt it was too much especially if I add the tons of baggage that came with Eric, because also his situation is not only a “struggle to figure out how his life got off-course”.

 

I think it is no spoiler if I simply say both struggle with almost everything that comes with the fact of living.

 

And at times their “together” story got lost in the shadows of their “single” stories. And if I add the fact that the storytelling felt so distanced at times, both characters remained strangers to me for most of the book.

 

I know there will be many people out there that will love this book but I am just me and I need more heart in a story like this.

 

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