Close Enough to Touch

by Colleen Oakley

A 28-year-old recluse with a unique allergy to physical contact with other people is forced to reenter the world after her mother's death, finding friendship with a 10-year-old troubled boy and love with his adoptive father.

• ISBN10: 1501139266
• ISBN13: 9781501139260
• Publish Date: 7 March 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publisher: The Gallery Press
• Imprint: Gallery Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Jubilee had an allergy. She was allergic to people. After an near death interaction, she shut herself away in her home. However, after nine years, she learned of her mother's death, and her "allowance" would be stopping. Going into survival mode, Jubilee was forced to rejoin the world, and what she found love and loss, friendship and a new found-family. She found hope and disappointment, and also discovered that she really wanted to be part of the world.

I will admit, that I have a love/hate relationship with the epilogue. At face value, it seems rather wonderful, but the author made this one decision, which left my heart aching a bit. Overall, though, I enjoyed getting to know Jubilee, Eric, and Aja, and being part of their healing journey.

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[Lianne]

I was approved an ARC of this book by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at my blog, eclectic tales: http://eclectictales.insanitysandwich.com/blog/2017/02/13/review-close-enough-to-touch/

While another blurb for this book pegged it as a unique love story–and it is–and the main character is faced with a very problematic medical condition–which is explored greatly throughout this novel–this book very much tackles a lot of issues that are very relatable: of interacting with other people and the risks that come along with relationships (romantic or otherwise), of being an adult, of parenthood, difficult children and teenagers, of messing up and making up for mistakes, of parents and their children. Both Jubilee and Eric have their own set of problems that they need to tackle and developments that they need to come to terms with; neither are perfect, they have their walls and their flaws.

And yet the development of their relationship–or lack thereof, it seems; the connection is there but due to a number of challenges it often felt like it never really started, as Jubilee later reflects–is the stuff of movies. There’s the connection, of course, but then there’s the little moments and misunderstandings and almost-moments that really makes it quite…cinematic, for lack of a better explanation. For a while there I actually thought things weren’t going to turn out as I thought it would, which left me a bit bummed, but suffice to say I was quite pleased with the ending.

Close Enough to Touch overall had an interesting premise–and certainly an interesting allergy to throw things for our couple in question into quite a tailspin–and that tackled with a ton of issues that I wasn’t expecting. The characters were interesting in their own right and together I was just rooting for them to pull through and end up together.