Name: Touch of Death
ISBN: 9781937053307

Kelly Hashway

During an otherwise normal year of high school, Jodi Marshall learns that she is part of a branch of necromancers because she was born under the thirteenth sign of the zodiac, and she has been chosen to save her breed from being destroyed by Hades.

Touch of Death

Monicap

4/5 stars. Better than I expected.

Plot: 3.5/5
Oh, no! I’ve begun using decimals.
So, for the first half of this book, I was uncomfortable with the mythology, and rightly so. One of my friends, reading the back, was outraged at the whole ‘thirteenth sign of the zodiac’. I don’t mind that. I understand existing reality must be tweaked for story purposes. But, until they explained it, the mythology seemed unsustainable. But then the explained it.
And then the ending, or rather, two chapters preceding the LAST couple of chapters… in those two chapters, some things happened that seemed very…abrupt. There was no lead-up to those events, or there a very little.
I feel that the part after the middle of this book and before those couple chapters was the best, plot-wise.

Characters: 3.5/5
Matt: reminded me SOOO much of Matt from TVD
Jodi: Hey, she agrees with me about Mac-and-Cheese (it’s gross), so, points for her!
Alex: his Mac-and-Cheese obsession, aww. His cuteness, aww. And, WTF??? (those last-ish two chapters)
Victoria and Troy: I liked neither of Alex’s parents. Troy, though he only spoke, like, three times, was undeniably mean and Victoria was very slimy.
Medusa: Medusa is cool. Me likey.
Abby: insecure-bitchy-mean-girl? I think.

Romance: 5/5
Concerning Jodi and Alex, not Jodi and Matt:
Although, yes, there was a bad case of intsalurve here, I found most f their exchanges to be natural, no cheesy. While I have said that, for the most part, I don’t mind cheesy, it was nice to not say “Cheesy” every couple of pages.
 “Yeah, well, I hate to break it to you, but the last thing a girl wants to see when she opens her eyes is a knife in the hand of the guy she—” I caught myself in time.
Alex cocked his head to the side and smirked. “Go on. The guy she…”
“She’s training with.”
Nice save, Jodi.
(The whole knife part of that exchange makes more sense in context)

Overall grade: 12/15
Not outstanding, but decent.

Kelsi Proulx

Well this was an awful experience. I normally reserve 1 star for books I don't finish so I guess 1.5 stars for this one...it sort of recovered itself in the last few chapters so I guess I can give half star for that. I felt like this book was extremely lacking in originality, it is pretty much a ripoff of Percy Jackson. Here's a comparison:

Percy Jackson:
Teacher at the beginning to teach about the powers the character doesn't yet know about: Check
Guardian posing as a student at the same school: Check
One parent a God and one a mortal: Check
Attends a special school to learn about her powers: Check
Turns out to be the chosen one from the prophecies, there to save all the others of her kind: Check

Touch of Death:
Teacher at the beginning to teach about the powers the character doesn't yet know about: Check
Guardian posing as a student at the same school: Check
One parent a God (actually a Gorgon descendent, but still) and one a mortal: Check
Attends a special school to learn about his powers: Check
Turns out to be the chosen one from the prophecies, there to save all the others of his kind: Check

Then there is this lovely quote which is pretty much a direct ripoff from Harry Potter: "Perhaps when you get to training today, you can ask Troy to teach you how to command the servants to draw you a map" after she showed up late for class...same job with much worse execution.

All I can say is if you are going to write a book, at least come up with some original ideas of your own. I really don't enjoy reading the same book with a different name. 

On top of this, the mythology felt completely inaccurate and pulled out of nowhere. Medusa had the power to turn people to stone. Where does Jodi's ability to kill and heal people with her bodily fluids come from? Apparently nowhere as far as I can tell...

Definitely not recommended and I won't be continuing with the series.

Siobhán

WOW!! Touch of Death is action pact from page one! It never slows down at all. I read it in about three hours because the wiriting was flawless and truely grips you.. I only have one negative and I want to get it out the way. Even those I seriously loved the story I felt like the story only lasted a few days, everything happens over a very short space of time and that made it feel just a tad unrealistic for me. But other than that the story itself was EPIC!!

Full review: http://totally-bookalicious.blogspot....