“Touch”, Claire North
Published February 24, 2015
Kepler had never meant to die this way — viciously beaten to death by a stinking vagrant in a dark back alley. But when reaching out to the murderer for salvation in those last dying moments, a sudden switch takes place.
Now Kepler is looking out through the eyes of the killer himself, staring down at a broken and ruined body lying in the dirt of the alley.
Instead of dying, Kepler has gained the ability to roam from one body to another, to jump into another person’s skin and see through their eyes, live their life — be it for a few minutes, a few months or a lifetime.
Kepler means these host bodies no harm — and even comes to cherish them intimately like lovers. But when one host, Josephine Cebula, is brutally assassinated, Kepler embarks on a mission to seek the truth — and avenge Josephine’s death.
“Nothing is ever quite enough. No matter who you are, there’s always something more to be had, which could be yours if only you were someone else.”
Claire North has a knack for crafting utterly original, high-concept science fiction stories that feel human. Touch might have to battle The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August for title of Most Revolutionary. The premise alone is enough to make your head spin: the protagonist, known only as Kepler, is a being who can jump from body to body with a single touch. Not possession in the traditional, ghostly sense—more like consciousness hijacking, leaving the original inhabitant sidelined. Look out for my review of Every Day by David Levithan if you think this plot is most intriguing.
Unlike the innocent YA love story that is Every Day, Touch is a thrilling metaphysical thought experiment. Kepler, an assassin-for-hire, finds themself the target of a murder plot. This story then becomes an intense globetrotting mystery as it races across continents and identities as Kepler tries to figure out who wants them dead and why. Every body they inhabit poses new questions for Kepler: how much of the host do they take over, and how much responsibility do they carry for the actions they take while wearing someone else’s skin? Most importantly, Kepler has to figure out who exactly they are without a body of their own.
The concept of Touch makes you think about the loneliness of immortality, the cost of survival, and the insatiable thirst for what others have.
Content Warnings
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of content and trigger warnings.
murder • transphobia
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Owned: thrifted paperback