ARC Review: Too Hot to Touch by Katy James

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Too Hot to Touch Too Hot to Touch by Katy James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars rounded up

This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed a lot about it such as the creating community, the emotional journey the male main character went on with his sexuality, the fact the diverse sexuality came from the male main character (super uncommon in straight romance!), the inclusion of updates on the couple from the previous book without it being shoehorned in, and how divergent the personalities of the two main characters were and how they tried to make it work.

There was also a lot that gave me pause. For example, the female main character is teaching a college course, albeit a non credit course, and never stopped to consider the ethical implications of involving herself with one of her students even if they did sort of know each other already. I don't mind that it was a student/teacher hook up initially but this wasn't even used as a titillating setup it was instead mostly ignored. I also found the female main character grating in general. She insisted on the male main character opening up and being honest with her and making space for her and yet completely refused to reciprocate due to her being a self-described "hot mess" but was really just a "boundaries lacking over-committer". She finally realized most of the crap she was saying yes to instead of the hot guy she SHOULD say yes to didn't matter and was easily fixed to be less of a drag at like 95% into the book. Which brings me to the final thing that gave me pause- the length of the book. This book was over 100,000 words but a lot of it was circular inner monologue and could've been tightened up more to help propel the story forward.

Overall, though, I was interested enough to keep reading the book until the end because I wanted to know if they would ever figure things out. I was also very interested in seeing how the male main character confronted his sexuality and how ultimately it would matter to the story because he ended up in a "straight passing" relationship. I was very satisfied with how his journey played out in the book and it was definitely a high point. If nothing else, I recommend giving this book a chance for trying something different with this.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

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