Skinned by Robin Wasserman

Rating: n/a

Re-Read? I don't know about re-reading it yet, but I can't wait to start reading Crashed.

Recommend? Could be a bit inappropriate for younger teens, but nothing terribly bad. A lot of sexual references.

Release Date: September 9th, 2008
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 368

Synopsis:

Lia Kahn was perfect: rich, beautiful, popular -- until the accident that nearly killed her. Now she has been downloaded into a new body that only looks human. Lia will never feel pain again, she will never age, and she can't ever truly die. But she is also rejected by her friends, betrayed by her boyfriend, and alienated from her old life.

Forced to the fringes of society, Lia joins others like her. But they are looked at as freaks. They are hated...and feared. They are everything but human, and according to most people, this is the ultimate crime -- for which they must pay the ultimate price.

My Thoughts:

When I first started reading Skinned, I wanted to put it down and just stop reading. I felt I just couldn't go on. Lia's story is just so tragic-- how could so many bad things happen to one person? But I kept reading because I knew there just HAD to be something good that happens to her. Some sort of silver lining. Reading Skinned was sort of like staring at a train wreck. Lia's life is horrible, you know what's going to happen, and yet you keep looking-- you keep reading-- and that's what I did. I kept reading until it was over. Prognosis? Yeah, her life pretty much sucks. Will it get better? Well, it can't get very much worse.

Okay, now this review is a bit different from my normal reviews. But, this book is different as well. I will not tell you I loved Skinned, but I also won't tell you I hated it. Trust me, I have strong emotions for this book, I just can't decide where they lie. I felt like I WAS Lia... that I lost everyone not because I am dead, but because I'm alive. When I should be dead. Forced to live forever in a body everyone hates-- as a Mech. A Machine. Not human-- never human. Do they hate her because she's a Mech? A skinner? Or because she's immortal? Doesn't matter much. The fact is they will never accept her as LIA. Lia's dead. But not dead. Does that make it worse? Shouldn't it make it better? Is it the soul-less eyes? Or the perfect face? Or maybe the laugh that never sounds quite right. Whatever it is, a machine is not human-- Lia's not human. And maybe that's okay.

Now I have to read Crashed, the second book in the Skinned Trilogy.

Details:

Cover: n/a
Plot: n/a
Characters: n/a
Writing: n/a