I seem to be in the minority in my feelings about this book.  Amazon readers gave it better than 4 stars.  Me?  Maybe 2.5.  Not more than three for sure.  I won’t bother re-reading this one.  It’s a good story, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t suck me in.  None of the characters was particularly compelling, and the story dragged in places.  There were times when I wondered if this book were part of a series and I had missed something, but that does not appear to be the case.  Done well, a backstory can enrich a book, give the characters depth and add color.  This backstory is not done well; it is only sketched in and doesn’t seem to add much.  Also, maybe I shouldn’t have passed my college English classes, but I wasn’t too good at reading the implications and foreshadowing here.  Again, there were times when I thought I must have missed something and it wasn’t until later in the book that I figured out what was meant.  For example, the main character, Touch, has mis-matched eyes.  It would be very easy to include this in the physical description of him, or to work it into one of the several times when another character is taken aback or mesmerized by his eyes.  Instead, I wondered what was so special about this guy’s eyes until much later in the book, when it finally mentioned that one was blue, one was brown.  That’s a stupid detail to withhold, don’t you think?

None of the characters were particularly likeable.  I know that having flawed characters is something the helps to make a book more realistic, but if this were my real life I’d run away from home.  Everyone seems to be really, really preoccupied with who is screwing who.  Oh, and I toned down the language.  I don’t necessarily mind profanity; it can set a tone or help define a character.  However, something about it bugged me in this book.  It just seemed gratuitous.  I think it was an attempt to be edgy that fell flat.

I didn’t like this book, but I didn’t hate it enough to not read it to the end.  I wouldn’t recommend it, but hey, if it ended up in your beach bag and you’re done the other book you brought, go ahead and read it.  It’ll help pass the time.