Close Enough to Touch: Review

Title: Close Enough to Touch
Author: Colleen Oakley
Publication Date: Mar. 7, 2017
Find: Amazon | Goodreads

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.

Colleen Oakley’s debut novel BEFORE I GO was a People Magazine Best New Book Pick in January 2015, an Us Weekly “Must” Pick, a Publisher’s Lunch Buzz Book, a January 2015 Indie Next List Pick and deemed “an impressive feat…an immensely entertaining, moving, and believable read” by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Formerly the senior editor of Marie Claire and editor-in-chief of Women’s Health & Fitness, Colleen’s articles, essays, and interviews have been featured in The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Marie Claire, Women’s Health, Redbook, Parade, and Martha Stewart Weddings. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, four kids and the world’s biggest lapdog, Bailey. Her second novel CLOSE ENOUGH TO TOUCH will be published by Simon & Schuster in April 2017.

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Jubilee Jenkins is one of the most unfortunate characters that I’ve ever read about. To not be able to experience touch of any kind would be awful. And on top of that she suffers from agoraphobia and is unable to leave her home for years.

Then there’s Eric Keegan who struggles with becoming the best parent he can be while realizing that parents are not perfect.

From the first chapter of “Close Enough to Touch” I realized that more than a love story, this would be a story about a woman who needed to come to terms with the cards that life had dealt her while also getting over the fears that have overtaken her for the past nine years. And also about a man who needed to strengthen the familial bonds that evade him.

These two characters would help each other in ways that either of them probably ever anticipated.

Couple that with the smoldering heat between these two, who can’t even touch one another, and you’ve got a beautiful story that warmed my heart.

I can’t wait to read more from Ms. Oakley.