SKIN was way out of my comfort zone, but I'm so glad I gave it a shot. It was amazing!

This is the story of two women, Tess and Bibi. Artists. Body Art. Performance Art. Body Horror. Body modifications. Cutting. Lesbians. Bisexuals. Heart. Sculpture. Welding. Feeling. Cult Mentality. Hangers-on. Groupies. Darkness. Death. Wish you were dead. Wish I was dead. And finally? Love. I love you.

Written in a prose that was sharp, stabbing, and staccato-like, SKIN takes some getting used to. I took a stab at it above, (get it? HA!), and it's much harder than it looks. (Or in this case, harder than it sounds, since I listened to this on audio.) I was amazed at how much the author was able to get across in so few words. Seriously, I was and still am astonished by it all.

I don't want to go into the plot too much, because it should unfold as the author intended. However, I did feel for these characters, I felt their pain and their need to be heard and loved. Though at other times I wanted to punch them both in the face. Either way, this book reached out to me and made me FEEL. Also, I feel like I accomplished something by surviving the experience, because this book was brutal at times.

At first I didn't care for the narration at all, but then I realized it was the prose that bothered me. As I said above, it takes some getting used to. Once I was more familiar with the writing style, the narration settled right into my head and this became more of a visual experience than a literary one. I'm not sure I'm making sense here, but looking at the other reviews, I don't think I'm the only one having trouble describing this book.

It's gory, heartbreaking, thrilling, cringe-inducing stuff. SKIN makes you think, it makes you face your fears, even as the characters attempt to face theirs. This tale isn't going to work for everyone, but it certainly worked for me!

Highly recommended!

*I was provided an Audible Audio code for this book by the narrator, in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!*

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This series involves Nick Travers, a blues fan and detective, assigned to find out about Robert Johnson's missing records. The plot involves the usual conflicts and killings from a mystery series with few surprises. The plot is therefore nothing too outstanding and the characters are quite clearly-defined unlike the black-and-white artwork which is not always clear. It's OK as far as it goes but don't expect anything very original.

I picked this up at some random point because it was really cheap. I've actually read very little by Charlaine Harris, I avoided all of the Sookie Stackhouse excitement completely - never read the books, never saw the HBO adaptation. In retrospect, that might have been a mistake because I'm not sure that this would qualify as her best work.

Midnight, Texas is a small town where things are not quite what they seem, including most of the inhabitants. The basic story relates to Bobo, the pawn shop owner (and frankly, I could never get over that STUPID name), whose girlfriend, Aubrey, has disappeared without a trace. Aubrey is also not what she seems. There is the local witch, Fiji (why, Charlaine, why?), the local psychic, Manfred (OMG, these names. Kill me) and the local nubile high school graduate, Creek, (OK, that name is actually quite good). And a vampire, Lemuel (we're back to stupid names, again).

In honor of Lemuel, I'm slotting this one in the Deadlands category. Vampires are not a favorite of mine, so I figure I'd better fill that category now or it may not happen later.

Anyway, I actually liked the town, and I even liked most of the characters, their stupid names notwithstanding. The problem with this book is that it went nowhere. And on the road to nowhere, it traveled sloooooooow. The ending was out of the blue, and left me thinking what the actual fuck just happened?

I may be willing to give Midnight, Texas another go, but I'm thinking that I should probably dip my toe into one of her other series first. The Lily Bard series is the most appealing to me, starting with Shakespeare's Landlord, but I think I will check it out of the library in case it is also a miss for me.

While engaged in the exploration of the treacherous Crossroad Nebula, the U.S.S. Enterprise detects a vessel that shouldn't exist: a Constitution-class starship with more advanced design elements, yet bearing signs of considerable age and wear. With the ship on a course for Tau Lyra III, a planet with a pre-warp civilization, Captain James Kirk beams aboard the half-dozen members of the ship's crew and detains them for their evident intent to violate the Prime Directive. But the crew soon escapes captivity and takes over the Enterprise, holding it hostage until their ship is repaired and their voyage to Tau Lyra is resumed. As the crew struggles to retake control, the mounting evidence makes it clear that the anomalous ship is indeed from the future and that its crew is waging a war against the greatest tyranny in their galaxy: the Federation.

Barbara Hambly's novel is one that I looked forward to reading for two reasons. The first was the back cover description, which promised a rare Star Trek time travel novel involving interaction with the future. It's always interesting to me to see where authors project the future of the Star Trek universe as heading, especially at a relatively early stage in the franchise before the shows locked in the canon. Here Hambly doesn't disappoint, fulfilling every expectation she set for me with her previous contribution to Pocket Books's Star Trek novels, Ishmael (which I still retain fond memories of despite having read it decades ago). Indeed, she provides a very rare bird indeed: a future Federation corrupted by a sinister organization that uses plagues, psionics, and advanced FTL travel to dominate the Alpha Quadrant.

The richness of Hambly's premise and the development of her characters (both from the series and her own creations) are undeniable strengths of her book. And yet I found elements of her plot cripplingly tiresome. Far too much of the story follows the predictable patterns of a series episode: alien crew escapes detention and takes over the ship, the crew faces a threat at odds with lofty Federation ideals, and a daring plan involving phaser fire is needed to save the day. To be fair, there are a couple of unexpected twists and turns, but by the end of the novel I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed by the overall result. While Hamby's book is definitely in the better half of the novels in the Pocket Books series, it nonetheless fall short of what it could have been given the material with which Hambly gave herself to work.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this book?

S.L.O.W.

It moved with glacial speed and the supernatural events were too far and few to make up for it.

The pacing wouldn’t have mattered, if the book didn’t also have the following problems:

The fact that one of the characters is a vampire is just sprung upon us and not in a good way.

Anybody who lives in the town of Midnight knows not to ask questions. To me, it seemed like a good way of not having to make up character backstories until absolutely needed.

I didn’t relate to or like any of the characters from the story either, with the exception of the cat who could talk. It caught my attention for a second and then lost it when its voice was described as snide (or was it nasal?).

The writing style didn’t do anything for me. An example from the book:

As she washed her hands, she thought of having corn bread with the soup tonight. As she was drying them, she told herself how much better the soup would be without the corn bread, and failed to convince herself that could be so.

Why Did I Read the Book Then?

All these complaints bring me to why I read this book in the first place. I wasn’t a fan of the Sookie series written by the same author either. While the show, True Blood, might have held my interest for a season or two, I didn’t follow it religiously either. What made me pick up this book was this trailer and the fact that there was a buddy read going on over at Booklikes.  I wanted to be a part of both. However, if you are expecting the book and show to be alike, they aren’t at least as far as the pacing is concerned.

I might try the next book in the series.

Then again, I might not!