Absolutely loved it! Colleen Oakley is fantastic at making you understand exactly how the characters are feeling. I was so hooked I read this in a day!
Jubilee has severe allergic reactions as a child and soon finds out she is allergic to people. She grows up never being touched. No loving hug from her mother, no kisses from crushes at school. Until one day Donovan kisses her. Little does she know at the time that it was all a joke. After almost dying from that brief interaction with another person she hides out in her house all summer. That summer turns in to 9 years. She gets a call from her mothers husband telling her that her mother has died. Jubilee knows she must leave the house to go to her funeral and, after her mothers husband telling her he will not be continuing the monthly cheques that her mother was, she must get a job.
Colleen takes you through the next few months of Jubilees life. Her getting job. Her socialising, making friends, even meeting a man. You can feel the anxiety that she feels. How hard it is for her to leave the house in the first place. How easily time can fly by without you even realising it. The annoyance she must feel when she can't touch people. Especially when she meets Eric.
You also get a view in to Erics life. Eric has an adopted son, and a teenage daughter several hours away that doesn't want to talk to him. His best friend and his wife died in a plane crash and Eric adopted their son Aja as per their wishes when he was born. In between trying to do a better job of raising Aja than he did his daughter, trying to get his daughter to talk to him again and balance a temporary job he meets Jubilee.
Each chapter switches between their point of views which shows that awkwardness we all have where two people feel the same way about each other but have no idea about the other. After their first few encounters I found myself just wanting something to happen between them. For them to find a way around her allergy. Or for her to find some medication or a cure of something. I found myself rooting for her.
If Colleens other books are anything like this then I will most definitely be seeking them out!
Jubilee has severe allergic reactions as a child and soon finds out she is allergic to people. She grows up never being touched. No loving hug from her mother, no kisses from crushes at school. Until one day Donovan kisses her. Little does she know at the time that it was all a joke. After almost dying from that brief interaction with another person she hides out in her house all summer. That summer turns in to 9 years. She gets a call from her mothers husband telling her that her mother has died. Jubilee knows she must leave the house to go to her funeral and, after her mothers husband telling her he will not be continuing the monthly cheques that her mother was, she must get a job.
Colleen takes you through the next few months of Jubilees life. Her getting job. Her socialising, making friends, even meeting a man. You can feel the anxiety that she feels. How hard it is for her to leave the house in the first place. How easily time can fly by without you even realising it. The annoyance she must feel when she can't touch people. Especially when she meets Eric.
You also get a view in to Erics life. Eric has an adopted son, and a teenage daughter several hours away that doesn't want to talk to him. His best friend and his wife died in a plane crash and Eric adopted their son Aja as per their wishes when he was born. In between trying to do a better job of raising Aja than he did his daughter, trying to get his daughter to talk to him again and balance a temporary job he meets Jubilee.
Each chapter switches between their point of views which shows that awkwardness we all have where two people feel the same way about each other but have no idea about the other. After their first few encounters I found myself just wanting something to happen between them. For them to find a way around her allergy. Or for her to find some medication or a cure of something. I found myself rooting for her.
If Colleens other books are anything like this then I will most definitely be seeking them out!