The Touch by Randall Wallace

Book reviews are subjective. I tend to rate books not according to how “perfect” they are, seem to be, or are said to be in general but rather to how perfect they are to me. I received a complimentary copy of this book, for which I’ve given an honest review, through a rewards program from the publisher. I received no monetary compensation.

The Touch by Randall Wallace

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lara studied him, and she knew something out of the ordinary had happened there, though she could not have said what, and she could not have known that something in this was even greater than what Jones had once seen at the Sistine Chapel, for this was alive, this was the Hand of God to Andrew Jones.

I had some idea–but then again, little idea at all–what I was in for when I picked up The Touch by author Randall Wallace, the story of a young, gifted surgeon who refuses to operate anymore after a personal, fatal tragedy.

I didn’t know until right before I started reading that this novella is by the screenwriter of the 1995 film Braveheart, but I didn’t go on reading with Braveheart expectations or qualifiers in my brain. I just took the story as it came, and although this may not be the place to make any cases on the matter, I would encourage all readers who normally steer clear of novellas because of their “too short” or “no depth” stigma not to prejudge and pass up this book on that basis. It’s too nuanced, too raw, too beautiful, too powerful of a story to overlook.

Sometimes, less is indeed more, and the author does more here than just relay a little medical tale. Admittedly, in the beginning, some of the wording and punctuation choices had me thinking the read might turn out to be on the pedestrian and even corny side, but I was proven wrong. Here, medicine and surgery become a song; they’re beauty and art, faith and genius, trial and triumph. The whole story is all of these things, both within and outside of the operating room.

It’s an excellently woven testament to life and love, and though I couldn’t absorb it all in one read-through, what I have absorbed this time is enough to mark this book as one of my all-time favorites.