Book Review: Dark Touch by Aimee L. Salter

Tully isn’t alone in her skin. Whenever she touches someone, they feel everything she feels. All her ugliness. All her darkness. All her pain.

The only thing she wants is to be left alone—and to finally get out of her small Oregon town.

But then she meets Chris. He’s everything she’s not. Light. Trusting. Innocent. And he wants Tully.

Tully knows she should spare him the heartache of being with her. But when he touches her, she’s not sure she’ll have the strength to push him away...

 

I really enjoyed Salter's first book, Every Ugly Word. Because of that, I was SUPER excited to dive into Dark Touch. I must have just royally pissed off the Book Gods because this one didn't blow my skirt up. And I wanted it to. I just enjoyed her other book so much. I was a little disappointed this time.

This book seemed a little all over the place. I don't know if it was because there were quite a few things going on or what. You've got this girl, Tully, who has been abused in multiple different ways, she has this weird power and she's completely self destructive. Her coping mechanisms are sad and very extreme. That was just a lot to have going on. I also felt like all of her issues weren't fully explained and just fleshed out. It felt unfinished by the time I got to the end of the book. That's not to say that there wasn't an ending, there was and it would have closed everything out nicely if the rest of the book had completely delved into everything. I just think that with books that talk about abuse and addiction should lay it all out there, you know? Get down to the nitty-gritty. This was a heart wrenching premise ... I wanted to feel that desperation, isolation and despair. I could feel the undercurrent of those emotions but I never felt overcome. 

I also didn't really connect with any of the characters. Especially not the two main ones, Tully and Chris. They weren't horrible characters, I just wanted more. I wanted to feel like I really knew them and that never came to pass. I felt like I could see that full character in the distance and I was so close to reaching it when it would pull away again. Unfortunately, they aren't two characters that will stick with me, I'll end up forgetting them fairly quickly. And that shouldn't happen with this kind of book. It should stick with me for at least a few days and just be on my mind constantly but it won't. Not this time.

One last note ... my copy of Dark Touch doesn't state that it is an advanced copy but there were quite a few formatting issues. Normally, I wouldn't even bring this up but it does slow down your reading experience because you're trying to figure out what in the hell is going on. There are words mashed together at least once a page, most of the time it's way more. No big deal, right? Right. Unless you get to the word CRACKSAND. WTF is cracksand? I must have sat there for two or three minutes trying to figure out what cracksand was. Well, it must mean that I'm an idiot because it is actually two separate words: cracks and. Yeah. Anyway ... it does pull your attention away from the book constantly. I just hope that I didn't have a final copy. I can't imagine that going out to the masses.

* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *

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