***ARC provided by Entangled Teen for review purposes***(Spoilers for Touch)It’s no secret that I LOVED Touch by Jus Accardo. How could I not? With a tough yet vulnerable MC like Dez and the super hot and deadly yet clueless Kale, I was immediately hooked! After eagerly anticipating Toxic and after a few release date set backs, I was ecstatic when I received my review copy.After Dez makes a bargain to save Kale’s life in Touch, she is warned that there will be consequences for it. But Dez doesn’t care because nothing can be worse than losing Kale, right? Fast forward to the present and Dez discovers that she is has lost her immunity to Kale’s deadly touch. After being the only person that Kale was able to touch, this definitely puts a strain on their relationship. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Dez only has a few months left until she turns 18 and the Supremacy program kicks in and her dad has ordered two new powerful and deadly sixes after her. To make things worse, Ginger has brought in a new six to “help” Kale control his powers. Not only does Jade have very valuable power, she is also a man-stealing bitch who is after Kale. (Excuse me while I do some breathing exercises to calm me down…OK, I think I’m good) Jade is one of the most manipulative characters I have read about and I hate her so much with this fiery passion that consumes me and I wish she would die a horrible, slow and painful death. (Yeah, she’s that bad!) There were many time when she would frustrate me so bad that I had to put the book down. Although Kale is a deadly assassin and can kill someone hundreds of different ways, being sheltered his whole life has him lacking some serious…common sense. Something Jade is not afraid to take full advantage of. Poor Kale doesn’t know that he shouldn’t let another girl hold your hand or take another girl to your date with Dez. And Dez, I know she is dealing with a LOT in life but the last thing you should be doing if another girl is after your guy is keeping secrets from him and pushing him away! ESPECIALLY if that bitch girl is trying to convince your guy that you are still involved with your ex. Speaking of Alex, I always had a soft spot for him in Touch and it continues in Toxic. Not that I want him with Dez but I do want him to be happy. Please Jus, do not kill off Alex! (Please?)As you can probably tell, Toxic was a very frustrating story for me but I absolutely LOVED it! Toxic takes us on one hell of an emotional roller coaster that will test your patience leave you feeling drained. But as soon as you finish reading the last page you will want more! And that ending? Evil! Although Dez makes a lot of stupid choices, she still manages to hold on to the snarky and tough personality that made me love her in the first book, even if she is barely hanging on by a thread. Kale continues to be awesome and we get to see more of Alex and the rest of the sixes, new and old characters. Actually, the scenes where Kale and Alex fight over Dez are some of my favorites. Even though I HATED Jade, kudos to you Jus for writing a character that can evoke so many strong emotions from me. Whether its love or hate, when I feel something this strong for a character, for me, that is what being a great author is all about. Can’t freaking wait for the next book in the Denazen series: Tremble and the next novella: Faceless. Although I will always be Team Kale, I hope Faceless is told in Alex’s POV.Full of heart-pounding action, suspense and emotional turmoil, Toxic is a fantastic addition to the Denazen series that you will NOT want to miss!5 out of 5 sparkly stars!Some of my favorite non-spoiler quotes from Toxic:-When Kale finally spoke again, his voice sounded calm, but I knew better. If anything, it was laced with more hate than before. “You’re correct. I can’t touch her for the time being-but neither can you.”Alex’s lip twitched. He folded his arms and puffed out his chest, standing a little straighter. I knew that stance. A challenge. “Wanna bet?”“I do,” Kale responded coolly. “Because if you try to do it again, I’ll touch you. Then the only thing you’ll be touching is the wind as you’re scattered across this world.”-“I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have no human interaction. How horrible.”He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “He had human interaction. He had me.”Jade flashed me a mock frown. “Had-past tense.-“Are you serious? She’s just waiting for a chance to jump you.”His eyes widened. Expression serious, he leaned forward. “That’s what you’re worried about?”“Well, yeah. She can--”He chuckled and scooted just a little closer. “That’s ridiculous. She has no training.”Training? For crap’s sake. Sometimes, I wanted to beat my head against the wall when talking to Kale.-“Dude, we’re the same kind.”Fist clenched, Kale leaned closer. “We are nothing alike.”Alex lost his grin. Jaw tight, he nodded in my direction. “We’re exactly alike. We both hurt her.”-Expression sad, he said, “You can’t touch me like you used to. But you can still talk to me.” He took a step closer. “I need you to talk to me, Dez.”-“You’re hungry?”“Ready to eat a small horse.”For a second, he looked worried, then he nodded. “Expression?”I smiled. “Expression.”-He took another step closer. I took another back. We did this until I’d backed into the side of the building.“This is worse than anything Denazen ever did to me. To be so close and yet have so much distance. To know I could hurt you-or worse-but still want so badly to touch you.”-He growled and stepped away. “You make me want to scream. It’s very strange.” Read more of my reviews at:www.MostlyYABookObsessed.com
SpoilersDez, Kale and the other Sixes are still hiding from Denazen. Naturally Denazen won't give up hunting Dez and her friends. Denazens desires to capture powerful Sixes, leads to them send a Six of their own to poison Dez, forcing her to either willingly join them to get a cure or risk death.On top of dealing with Denazen and impending death, Dez is gutted to learn that she's lost her ability to touch Kale without getting hurt. Dez worries are further escalated when new girl, Jade, who has an immunity to Kale's deadly powers sets out to steal Kale for herself. -Dez was as great as ever. She was likeable without being a goody two shoes. I love YA heroines that actually want to have good time, that like to drink and party and make out with guys like a normal teenager. It makes a change from the usual never been kissed, naive, boring, prudish YA heroines. One think that did annoy me about Dez was how easily she forgave Kale after he kissed Jade. I was disappointed that she didn't make him suffer a little, I expected her to tell him where to go especially after Alex had cheated on her. Even though Dez was too forgiving, she's definitely one of my favourite YA heroines.-I loved Kale in Touch and in his novella but I disliked him in this one. He was so dumb in regard to Jade - touching her, going to parties with her, defending her, being her hero..it came across that he was more in love with Jade then Dez.Kale treated Dez awfully — he left her at a party when police showed up to save himself and then he also saved Jade but left Dez to die in a burning building. He was such an uncaring idiot. He was all over Jade, he spent all his time with her, he confided in her and worst of all, he kissed her. Even reading his POV about the kiss and his logic that went with it didn't help. He still cheated on Dez and I hate cheating heroes. On top of everything, he then tells Dez how much he likes holding hands with Jade and how much he enjoyed his kiss with Jade..ugh, seriously WTF?! Kale was so great in the last book because he was loyal and sweet and now he's just a cheat. I'm getting annoyed with all the heroes in YA/PNR/UF either being abusers, liars or cheaters — isn't there one decent hero out there?!-I hated Jade. She was a bitch for no good reason at all. What kind of person throws themselves on someone whose already taken?? She knew Kale loved Dez but for some reason she thought she had the right to interfere in their relationship. She was a desperate loser.-Dez's dad seriously needs to die. I was actually interested in why he was such a dick in the first book but I don't really care anymore. He's just evil for no apparent reason and wants to control and kill anyone that doesn't follow him. It's hard to find a character engaging when they have no shades of grey.-Dez's relationship with her mum, Shanna, was weird. They were so awkward and distant around each other. Kale was more Shanna's child than Dez, Kale and Shanna seemed to have a much more loving and sweet relationship than Dez and Shanna. I guess it was realistic that Shanna was closer to Kale than Dez considering she raised Kale and hardly knew Dez. It would have been good to see Dez being uncomfortable about her mum loving Kale more than her though. It's quite sad that Dez doesn't really have a proper family and parents who love and look after her — her mum's a stranger, her dad's a psycho and her sister's a bitch. At least Kale has Shanna as a parent, which is good because his grandmother's a bitch. It's frustrating how understanding he is when it comes to Ginger's actions. Kale should tell Ginger to piss off, after everything she's done to him.This was almost as entertaining as the first book, however the romance and Kale let it down. Kale no longer holds any interest to me, he lost all his appeal and turned into a typical idiotic YA love interest. Dez was as awesome as ever so I'll still be reading the next book.
What do You think about Toxic (2012)?
Ahh! This book was everything I expected and more! After waiting and waiting for this book I finally read it this past Thursday and loved it. Touched was amazing but Toxic was even better. Kale and Dez's relationship is growing but everything isn't perfect especially when a new girl comes into the picture.In this book we meet some new characters and some of our favorites from Touched come back. One of the new characters, Jade, knew exactly how to get underneath my and Dez's skin. Jus did a great job of making you hate Jade but love when she was on the page because you knew there was going to be some drama. In Toxic, some of my favorites and least favorites from the first book surprised me. Kale had to be the most surprising out of the bunch. Sometimes I just wanted to pull my hair at how clueless he was! At first it was endearing but in certain situations I dreamed of smacking some sense into him. I will admit, I appreciated the bonus chapter at the end so I didn't hate Kale completely. Alex, while still a jerk, was another character that surprised me. I really liked him in this book even though he had his annoying moments.The concept of this book was interesting and had some unexpected twists. One twist towards the end will leave you speechless and you will probably have to reread a couple of times. I'm actually not a fan of the whole 'girl-comes-in-and-ruins-everything' but the relationship between Jade, Dez, ad Kale was too intriguing not to read. I don't want to say too much because I might give away some spoilers.If you haven't heard of the Touch series you need to read it now! The first and second book are amazing! Let me know what you think :)
—Kayla (Ramblings of a Book Junkie)
Toxic Review on K-Books "Sometimes I can't breathe when I'm near you. Knowing we can't touch steals the air from my lungs. It hurts, and it's all I can thing about."Woah! What a phenomenal and emotional book. I was so excited when I received Toxic, the second book in the amazing Denezen series, for review. I just had to start it straight away. I instantly fell in love with this series when I read the first book Touch last year and have been very impatiently waiting for the next installment. I was not disappointed in the slightest. Toxic surpasses all my expectations and is even better than the phenomenal Touch.Dez and Kale were warned that things would change but they never expected their worse fears would come to life. Dez's immunity to Kale's 'death touch' suddenly fades and she finds herself unable to do the one thing that she took for granted. Being able to touch her beloved boyfriend. Suddenly faced with the fact that this could be permanent a new face joins the team of Sixes, Jade may be the one person who could help Kale to control his touch. But Dez and Jade come to blows when Jade shows that she is crushing hard on Kale. But suddenly keeping her boyfriend is the least of Dez's problems. Faced with Denezen again, Dez finds life-threatening trouble and the only way to save her life may be to go to the one place she is sworn to fight against.This is without a doubt one of the most emotional books I have ever read in my life. Toxic definitely takes us on an emotional journey. I was all happy and in love with Kale one minute just to be freaking out and crying the next. I was almost scared to finish the book just because I knew something big was going to happen. I was definitely right about that.Dez goes through such a hard time in this book. It's really tough for her which makes it really tough on the reader. This is an incredibly emotional journey for Dez. She has to deal with the fact that she can't touch the one person she loves as well as deal with the new girl vying for Kale's attention. I really felt for her and although I have faith that everything is going to work out in the end I was just hysterical, crying one minute because my heart seriously hurt for her and then so angry the next I wanted to jump in the book and throw some punches. The thing I loved about this book is that we really got to see a different side to Dez. In book one she is this strong, take no crap from anyone, badass heroine but in this one we see her vulnerability. That she is just like any girl who has insecurities and she can't be strong all the time and I loved being able to see that side of her.Now then let's move onto the new girl, Jade. Basically I freaking hate her! I despise her and I just want to strangle her! She is awful and mean and plainly just a bitch! There were so many times in this book where I was so damn close to throwing my kindle across the room and I was so angry. I just hate her. If I were Dez I definitely would have done something different. Like punched Jade every damn time she was near me. I was told I would be surprised by Jade by the end and I kind of was but I still cannot stand her and I want someone to hurt her so damn bad! I just hate her!!Kale... *insert dreamy sigh here* Kale is just so perfect and sweet. I just love him. BUT as much as I love him that did not stop me from being kinda mad with him in this book. Kale is so innocent and I feel like Jade took advantage of that to try and keep him away from Dez. I love how Kale is so protective of Dez and he's terrified that he's going to hurt her but it did make me incredibly sad that Kale was spending so much time away from Dez. But by the end of course I was back to being head over heels in love with him.Toxic is an incredible instalment in the Denezen series and there were so many twists and turns. I couldn't believe what happened in the end and was left like: *gasp* I never saw that coming. I cannot wait for the third book and I am left reeling after that cliffhanger. I am dying to see what is going to happen next. Jus is fast becoming a favourite author of mine. She is a phenomenal writer and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.Toxic will steal your breath and your heart and leave you begging for more. This is one phenomenal series that you DO NOT want to miss out. I loved every single second of it. A must-read! "My heart beats like this for you. No amount of touching, no other girl, nothing will ever change that."
—Kayleigh {K-Books}
Wow! I seriously fell in love with Touch last year and waited very impatiently for Toxic and I have to say, it was really worth the wait. Toxic absolutely blew me away! Filled with action-packed scenes and heart-stopping moments, Jus rocked my world with her twisted story of Sixes and the Denezen corporation.First, let me say I laughed my ass off so many times while reading Toxic. You know I’m a HUGE fan of snarky, strong-willed female leads, right?! Well, Dez is right up there with the best of them because this girl’s wit and attitude is so freaking fantastic, I can’t help but love her. She has a fierce love for Kale and her “act-now-think-later” personality is one I adore, even though it gets her in trouble a lot. Still, she’s definitely a favorite character of mine and she has to go through a lot of major crap in this book, especially regarding a particular Six by the name of Jade, which really makes you feel for the girl.Anyways, in Toxic, you delve deeper into the mystery behind the Denazen Corp. and see just how twisted and evil Dez’s father really is. They will stop at nothing to get Kale, their killing machine, back and you get a real taste of the lengths Dez’s father will go to in order to get what he wants. You also meet some pretty interesting new Sixes in addition to Jade, who is immune to Kale’s power (among other things). Of particular note is a set of very devilish twins who make bad boys look really tempting! But they also have some pretty freaky special abilities, so look out for that.Overall, I found myself flying through this book, only because I couldn’t put it down! There were definitely some heart-stopping moments, especially those steamy Kale & Dez hookups, and some seriously depressing moments, especially when it comes to Alex – can I just give him a hug, because that guy can’t catch a break! One thing I will warn you about is Toxic leaves you with a cliffhanger. Damn all the cliffhangers to hell!I’m seriously shaking at the edge of my seat for Tremble! I need more Kale! Please, Jus! Please!!!!!Get. This. Book!
—Vi
