Oh boy, if all sci-fi had as well-developed characters as this one, I would read a whole lot more of it. Skin initially caught my eye because of the striking cover and I thought the general premise sounding interesting enough. It is set in the near-future where a disease has broken out among humanity which makes them allergic to each other. The result of this is that people have to live in isolation, communicating with others only through screens and essentially never venturing outside (certainly never without a hazmat suit). The focus is on a single family and our main character is Angela, the mother of the household.
If you couldn't tell from my intro, my favourite thing by far about this book was the characters. Angela was a fantastic portrayal of a modern jaded woman-someone who doesn't have high expectations but gets on with things. She read so true to me and it added a lot of strength to the story. Her kids felt like people who had grown up in this world and they managed to be compelling characters without distracting from the plot. Her husband was maybe the weakest but even then, you got the impression of hidden depth that the story just wasn't exploring. Brown can definitely write three dimensional people.
The plot itself was fairly strong and it certainly lives up to the premise promised. It's more of a world-building based plot than anything else so be aware of that going in. My main issue was the ending of the book which (no spoilers) was very abrupt and didn't quite feel complete and satisfactory. This could have easily been a 4 star read had the ending had a little more meat to it.
Overall, this is a solid sci-fi book and definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the genre. It uses the concept to explore humanity and people's behaviour which, in my opinion, is the best kind of sci-fi book. It could have maybe done with a little more of a story in the second half but it does decently enough and I'm very happy I decided to read it.
Overall Rating:
.5
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