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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
This novel is hilarious. Fast paced and smoothly written, the main characters feel incredibly real as you follow them through some of the most unlikely of situations. Suspension of disbelief is easily achieved, and while several of the secondary characters come across originally as cloyingly perfect, Ms. Koch manages to cut them with flaws befitting the characters and keep them from becoming unrealistic.
It’s a fun, quick read that will keep you turning the page long after your bedtime. (I suggest starting it on a Saturday morning)
It’s a fun, quick read that will keep you turning the page long after your bedtime. (I suggest starting it on a Saturday morning)
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ok, I really enjoyed this book, but I want to be clear that I liked it because it was kinda tropy just with a female main character. It is a cheezy sci-fi romance novel and I loved it and will continue reading the series. I highly recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Sexual content, Religious bigotry
Minor: Rape
Entertaining but took itself surprisingly seriously. Too much info-dumping.
Yeah, it's all about Kitty Kat. She's the one perfect woman on Earth and every straight man, whether alien, parasite, or human wants her...
This was a very silly book. Kitty happens to take out Superbing aka human-infested parasite while coming out of jury duty. She's quick on her feet and says a lot of sarcastic and snappy things, oh and she's beautiful. So the Men in Black/Armani pick her up and take her to their secret headquarters and recruit her in their battle to save Earth from the evil parasites that turn into Superbeings when they take on human/mammalian hosts. So yea, lots of silly fun stuff going on here...like all of the aliens are from Alpha Centauri and are just humans but a million times better...better looking, faster, stronger, etc.
Make a long story short...it's silly and it's fun. It's got lots of action and witty and not-witty dialogue. But I could never buy the actual story. It wasn't coherent enough for me. There were so many plot holes and inconsistencies with Kitty that I had a hard time really loving this one. I'm not sure if the author was trying to literally say Kitty was the perfect woman or not. But having her pretty much solve everything and do everything that many aliens and humans couldn't over so many years was just something I wasn't buying.
There were a few other things I didn't like about Kitty/the book or I should say the author...she made Kitty out to be not overly religious and yet super religious. Her parents brought her up a freethinker and yet her daddy treats her like her virginity is the most precious commodity she has ever had. She believes in God, she doesn't know, then all the bad people in the book don't believe in God...sigh. She has lots of great sex but feels horrible about it. She calls herself a slut and other horrible things. She talks about the double standard of men and women regarding this issue and yet still believes it. Ugh! I don't get it, Gini Koch! Just because some people may not believe in God doesn't make them evil parasitic Superbeings and just because people have a healthy sexuality doesn't make them sluts!!! For crying out loud!
This book reminds me of those blockbuster action movies. Lots of action and witty dialogue but no real substance or storyline to speak of. Get your thrills and move on.
This was a very silly book. Kitty happens to take out Superbing aka human-infested parasite while coming out of jury duty. She's quick on her feet and says a lot of sarcastic and snappy things, oh and she's beautiful. So the Men in Black/Armani pick her up and take her to their secret headquarters and recruit her in their battle to save Earth from the evil parasites that turn into Superbeings when they take on human/mammalian hosts. So yea, lots of silly fun stuff going on here...like all of the aliens are from Alpha Centauri and are just humans but a million times better...better looking, faster, stronger, etc.
Make a long story short...it's silly and it's fun. It's got lots of action and witty and not-witty dialogue. But I could never buy the actual story. It wasn't coherent enough for me. There were so many plot holes and inconsistencies with Kitty that I had a hard time really loving this one. I'm not sure if the author was trying to literally say Kitty was the perfect woman or not. But having her pretty much solve everything and do everything that many aliens and humans couldn't over so many years was just something I wasn't buying.
There were a few other things I didn't like about Kitty/the book or I should say the author...she made Kitty out to be not overly religious and yet super religious. Her parents brought her up a freethinker and yet her daddy treats her like her virginity is the most precious commodity she has ever had. She believes in God, she doesn't know, then all the bad people in the book don't believe in God...sigh. She has lots of great sex but feels horrible about it. She calls herself a slut and other horrible things. She talks about the double standard of men and women regarding this issue and yet still believes it. Ugh! I don't get it, Gini Koch! Just because some people may not believe in God doesn't make them evil parasitic Superbeings and just because people have a healthy sexuality doesn't make them sluts!!! For crying out loud!
This book reminds me of those blockbuster action movies. Lots of action and witty dialogue but no real substance or storyline to speak of. Get your thrills and move on.
3.5 really but I'm rounding up because of the fun factor. Luckily this book is firmly in the popcorn movie, turn your brain off entertainment camp because the whole thing falls apart if you think about it too deeply. Imagine if the old awesome Will Smith from Men in Black, Independence Day or Enemy of the State were a 20-something woman and you'd have this book. Kitty is a marketing manager on her way out of jury duty when her world explodes. She's quickly drawn into otherworldly intrigues, evil superbeings and hot alien men. She not only handles it with aplomb, she ends up being in charge of pretty much everything. She can blind reload a gun she's handled once! While hanging upside down! From a "hovering" jet! Can jets even hover? I don't know and honestly, after I asked myself that question I just when "eh, who cares", smiled and kept reading. That pretty much sums up this book.
And every time my critical side pointed out these ridiculous scenarios someone would say something funny or something so over the top would happen and I would be reminded to just go with it and have fun. It's actually hard to write a review because the more I think about it, the more falls apart but also, kinda, the more I don't care. If you're a reader who can't help but pick apart unlikely or impossible scenarios I'll say this book probably isn't for you. But if you can just go with it, expect some summer brain candy and have fun with it, it's totally worth it. The characters are extremely likeable, Kitty has a fun relationship with her parents, there's lots of snark, lots of explosions and creative ways to kill big, gross monsters. I can see more of this series on my summer reading list.
And every time my critical side pointed out these ridiculous scenarios someone would say something funny or something so over the top would happen and I would be reminded to just go with it and have fun. It's actually hard to write a review because the more I think about it, the more falls apart but also, kinda, the more I don't care. If you're a reader who can't help but pick apart unlikely or impossible scenarios I'll say this book probably isn't for you. But if you can just go with it, expect some summer brain candy and have fun with it, it's totally worth it. The characters are extremely likeable, Kitty has a fun relationship with her parents, there's lots of snark, lots of explosions and creative ways to kill big, gross monsters. I can see more of this series on my summer reading list.
Touched by an Alien is my first encounter with science-fiction romance. Basically it's paranormal romance, only instead of a gang of hunky vampires, we have hunky aliens.
When Kitty walks out of the courthouse on a sunny day, she doesn't expect to see a man turn into an alien and shred his wife into pieces. Neither did she expect to kill said alien with an expensive Mont Blanc pen. Within moments she is led away by a gorgeous man in an Armani suit that claims to be part of an organisation trying to save the world from an alien invasion.
Touched by an Alien immediately hooked me. The story starts with immediate action, and it doesn't slow down after that. It's one long string of revelations, plot developments and snarky come-backs. Especially the snarkiness seems to be Kitty's speciality; I liked her for saying what was on her mind with no reserve. Too many books revolve around people keeping everything a secret - no such thing with Kitty. Even though she can get a bit annoying (she really likes to refer to big bad aliens as fuglies, and she seems to be incapable of being serious), I generally liked reading from her point of view.
The book started solid for me, and I was expecting this to be a four, maybe five star read. The further along I came in the book, the more annoyed I got and the rating started dropping. We get reveal after reveal after reveal and after a while I just wanted things to STAY LIKE THEY WERE. There is only so much you can understand in a story. You can't first give us a ton of world-building to remember, then every ten pages say "but that's not what's really going on!" and come up with something new. Another thing that bothered me was that ALL the revelations were made by Kitty. She helps people that have been doing their jobs for half their lives, and Miss Snappy comes in and solves everything in two days. You know, it's fine to have someone else come up with something sometimes too.
The worst thing about Touched by an Alien for me was the religious references and the sexism/slut-shaming. Basically, a group of good aliens has been exiled from their planet because of their religion. Kitty then makes the reference of them being like the Jews and the Holocaust. HOW?! Did they get chopped to pieces? Did they get experimented on as if they were even less than animals? Were they tortured, burnt, hit, starved, and denigrated? Did they put millions of aliens in ovens or gas chambers? No? THEN IT'S NOT LIKE THE FRIGGING HOLOCAUST. I think the word Ms Koch was looking for is "diaspora", which in this case means the shattering of the Jews across the world because they couldn't stay in their homeland. THAT'S the correct comparison. Comparing exile with the Holocaust is offensive and not a correct representation of what actually happened, which is that in a few years, six million Jews in Europe were systematically killed. So no, leaving a few thousand aliens on a different planet is not like that.
Other than that massive blunder, the religious undertones were tiring and didn't fit at all in my opinion. I didn't get what point Ms Koch was trying to make, and I'm not sure I even want to know.
Sometimes Touched by an Alien is downright contradictory. At one point, a human gay man says something in the lines of "oh, the aliens don't have the gender biases we humans do". Meaning in this case, that it's fine for him to have a relationship with an alien man. Then we find out that all agents in the field are male. Every single one of them. All the females are scientists and are in the base doing god knows what (we never actually see them doing anything useful). How is this not having gender bias? It annoyed me to no end that all the females except Kitty are being relegated to being breeding machines and tech peeps. Nothing wrong with being a scientist - but that's just frigging sexist.
Also, Kitty calls herself a slut a lot during the middle part of the book - because she slept with some dudes throughout her twenty-seven years. And worst part is is that she acknowledges that it's a social construct and that it doesn't make any sense, yet she feels the same way and she still feels guilty for sleeping with another consenting adult.
I think Touched by an Alien is best enjoyed with your braincells turned off or at least hibernating. The story is engaging and there is some erm... alternative fighting going on (for example, dropping salt on a giant slug-alien with a plane) and there are tons of characters all trying to best each other in verbal combat. Enjoyable, but not if you look below the surface. Will probably read the second book in the series, since my biggest problem was with the religious undertones and I expect that the subsequent books probably won't focus on that as much.
When Kitty walks out of the courthouse on a sunny day, she doesn't expect to see a man turn into an alien and shred his wife into pieces. Neither did she expect to kill said alien with an expensive Mont Blanc pen. Within moments she is led away by a gorgeous man in an Armani suit that claims to be part of an organisation trying to save the world from an alien invasion.
Touched by an Alien immediately hooked me. The story starts with immediate action, and it doesn't slow down after that. It's one long string of revelations, plot developments and snarky come-backs. Especially the snarkiness seems to be Kitty's speciality; I liked her for saying what was on her mind with no reserve. Too many books revolve around people keeping everything a secret - no such thing with Kitty. Even though she can get a bit annoying (she really likes to refer to big bad aliens as fuglies, and she seems to be incapable of being serious), I generally liked reading from her point of view.
The book started solid for me, and I was expecting this to be a four, maybe five star read. The further along I came in the book, the more annoyed I got and the rating started dropping. We get reveal after reveal after reveal and after a while I just wanted things to STAY LIKE THEY WERE. There is only so much you can understand in a story. You can't first give us a ton of world-building to remember, then every ten pages say "but that's not what's really going on!" and come up with something new. Another thing that bothered me was that ALL the revelations were made by Kitty. She helps people that have been doing their jobs for half their lives, and Miss Snappy comes in and solves everything in two days. You know, it's fine to have someone else come up with something sometimes too.
The worst thing about Touched by an Alien for me was the religious references and the sexism/slut-shaming. Basically, a group of good aliens has been exiled from their planet because of their religion. Kitty then makes the reference of them being like the Jews and the Holocaust. HOW?! Did they get chopped to pieces? Did they get experimented on as if they were even less than animals? Were they tortured, burnt, hit, starved, and denigrated? Did they put millions of aliens in ovens or gas chambers? No? THEN IT'S NOT LIKE THE FRIGGING HOLOCAUST. I think the word Ms Koch was looking for is "diaspora", which in this case means the shattering of the Jews across the world because they couldn't stay in their homeland. THAT'S the correct comparison. Comparing exile with the Holocaust is offensive and not a correct representation of what actually happened, which is that in a few years, six million Jews in Europe were systematically killed. So no, leaving a few thousand aliens on a different planet is not like that.
Other than that massive blunder, the religious undertones were tiring and didn't fit at all in my opinion. I didn't get what point Ms Koch was trying to make, and I'm not sure I even want to know.
Sometimes Touched by an Alien is downright contradictory. At one point, a human gay man says something in the lines of "oh, the aliens don't have the gender biases we humans do". Meaning in this case, that it's fine for him to have a relationship with an alien man. Then we find out that all agents in the field are male. Every single one of them. All the females are scientists and are in the base doing god knows what (we never actually see them doing anything useful). How is this not having gender bias? It annoyed me to no end that all the females except Kitty are being relegated to being breeding machines and tech peeps. Nothing wrong with being a scientist - but that's just frigging sexist.
Also, Kitty calls herself a slut a lot during the middle part of the book - because she slept with some dudes throughout her twenty-seven years. And worst part is is that she acknowledges that it's a social construct and that it doesn't make any sense, yet she feels the same way and she still feels guilty for sleeping with another consenting adult.
I think Touched by an Alien is best enjoyed with your braincells turned off or at least hibernating. The story is engaging and there is some erm... alternative fighting going on (for example, dropping salt on a giant slug-alien with a plane) and there are tons of characters all trying to best each other in verbal combat. Enjoyable, but not if you look below the surface. Will probably read the second book in the series, since my biggest problem was with the religious undertones and I expect that the subsequent books probably won't focus on that as much.
Now THAT was a fun read! Fast paced and humorous. Hair spray and metal bands took me back to my party days in the 80s. While at moments cliche, Koch's book is great if you're looking for something light hearted and entertaining. It's a frolic!
First 5 star book I've read since April! If that doesn't speak volumes nothing will!
This has to be one of the most wildly inconsistent books I have ever read.
There is some witty dialogue but little to no world-building. I don't think the writer knew what was going on any more than the characters did.
Then I'd get a scene when the action was great, witty dialogue, and it would die somewhere in the middle.
It just didn't work, and I don't know whether to blame the author or the editor.
There is some witty dialogue but little to no world-building. I don't think the writer knew what was going on any more than the characters did.
Then I'd get a scene when the action was great, witty dialogue, and it would die somewhere in the middle.
It just didn't work, and I don't know whether to blame the author or the editor.