Review: Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch
May Contain Spoilers
Review:
I’m bummed that Touched by an Alien did not work for me. I thought there was too much telling and not enough doing, and it got annoying after a while. I hit the 52% mark and decided that this rental was going back to the library. Even though this book didn’t win me over, I am still interested in the series and I’ll probably give Alien Tango a whirl (sorry for the awful pun!). I don’t know if all of the set up is what bogged things down, so I need to do a little more research to know for sure.
I liked Kitty and her family, but the gorgeous aliens attempting to help save the world were both smug and annoying. Christopher was a jerk, and I don’t know if he redeemed himself or not because I set the book aside. Jeff Martini was too good to be true. An empath, he has an unfair advantage to wooing Kitty because he knows what she’s feeling. I thought that was kind of creepy, and it gave Jeff the upper hand in their relationship. If the Alpha Centauris weren’t such terrible liars, I could not have bought into their romance at all. Since he can’t lie to save his life, I’m taking the leap and assuming that he can’t manipulate Kitty’s feelings without her catching on either.
The book started out promisingly. Kitty is minding her own business, headed back to work after an early dismissal from jury duty, when a domestic dispute breaks out in front of her. Things get ugly when the man turns into a winged super powered being who can fling blades from his wings, causing chaos, death, and destruction. Instead of running away, Kitty grabs the only weapon in her possession, a pen, and kills the monster. I loved that! Here’s a bad ass heroine who can’t run away and save herself, but instead has to take matters into her own hands and try to stop the mindless killing that’s taking place in front of her. Things kind of took a downward spiral after, though.
When she’s whisked away back a gang of impeccably dressed, drop-dead gorgeous men, she learns that they are aliens, and they’ve come to Earth to try to save it from parasitic beings that turn people into super powered monsters. All of the background info is fed to the reader through long-winded dialog, which quickly got boring. I probably wouldn’t have read as far as I did if it wasn’t for another monster attack, and the introduction of Kitty’s mom, who is every bit a bad ass as her daughter. She’s also a secret agent, and she quickly takes charge of the alien situation. Her dad enters the picture soon after, and he’s just as fun as her mom.
The endless verbal barrages, with their accompanying info dumps, finally had me setting the book aside. I liked Kitty and her parents, though, so I’m going to give the next book a try, with hopes that once the series is more established, there will be more doing and less jaw flapping. Are any of you reading the series? What do you think?
Grade: DNF
Review copy obtained from my local library
From Amazon:
Marketing manager Katherine “Kitty” Katt had just finished a day on jury duty. When she stepped out of the Pueblo Caliente courthouse, all she was thinking about was the work she had to get caught up on. Then her attention was caught by a fight between a couple that looked like it was about to turn ugly. But ugly didn’t even begin to cover it when the “man” suddenly transformed into a huge, winged monster right out of a grade Z science fiction movie and went on a deadly killing spree. In hindsight, Kitty realized she probably should have panicked and run screaming the way everyone around her was doing. Instead she sprinted into action to take down the alien.
In the middle of all the screeching and the ensuing chaos, a hunk in an Armani suit suddenly appeared beside her, introduced himself as Jeff Martini with “the agency,” and then insisted on leading her to a nearby limo to talk to his “boss.” And that was how Kitty’s new life among the aliens began…Touched by an Alien is the thrilling first installment of the Alien novels.
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