- Publisher: Unveiled Publishing (5 April 2021)
- Language: English
- Paperback: 459 pages
- ISBN-10: 0578860872
- ISBN-13: 978-0578860879
- Genre: Coming Of Age Novels
The BookViral Review:
Joltingly powerful, instantly compelling and often heart-breaking, Miller hasn’t picked an easy subject on which to write but her willingness to steer away from a prescriptive approach means she reaches her readers on a hauntingly emotional level. Providing richness of detail and metaphor, an elegantly blueprinted theme and impressive mastery of a constantly shifting tone as she demonstrates an enviable ability to project the mental anguish of her characters, making them feel overwhelmingly real.
Coming of age fiction is a genre (especially when written for YA readers) in which intelligence is woefully undervalued, but it is this quality — even more than Miller’s narrative finesse — that distinguishes “Touch” from its peers. The result is a read that is not only challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about but is insightful and encourages much in the way of reflection whilst leaving us with a degree of empathy and understanding we might not have otherwise embraced.
Of particular note is the three-dimensionality of Miller’s characters who pull us in like a magnetic force field. Megan’s family weep, bleed and endure and Miller’s dialogue is cuttingly precise in its observations. Yet “Touch” is not an unrelieved cry of pain. There is humour in it, and tender insight too. But what is devastating in “Touch” is how Miller puts the sureness of justice into doubt as she allows the full horror of Shawn’s life to be revealed. Reminding us that denial and hope often grow from the same vine whilst young lives are ultimately built around the way they’re nurtured.
An unforgettable and powerfully poignant five star read Touch is unreservedly recommended.