Customer Reviews

Skin

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This was the first Kathe Koja book I ever read, and it was not the last. This book was great on so many different levels. I loved the writing style, long sentences and all. I especially loved the characters, Bibi and Tess, and the secondary characters of the performance troupe - they were presented as true artists of the industrial culture, the ideas at the heart of industrial music and its fans, not poseur whiny kids in cute black clothes. (Aside from Koja, I recommend Poppy Z. Brite and Caitlin R. Kiernan for getting past cliches of kids in subcultures.) This book was real and raw and different. I don't think the author was trying to "push" homosexuality on a reader or exploit it for book sales. What do people want? A label on books that says: Warning: Contents May Offend or Challenge Your Sensibilities? That's what good books are supposed to do! If one wants a label that says the opposite, perhaps one should look for books with Koontz and Rice embossed nice and shiny on the cover.

I most faithfully believe that SKIN sets a standard by which all books of the "darker" genre should be measured. This book is indeed dark, but it is also incandescent. I am by no means an uncritical reader, so when I say that, page after page, SKIN had me breathless, touched, and completely floored, I sincerely mean it. Kathe Koja is a passionate, visceral writer, gifted with the uncommon knack for gorgeous and hallucinatory prose. Reading SKIN, I could not help but feel moved -- it seemed as though I had been waiting a long, long time to come in contact with something so extremely alive and so extremely rarefied - so unrelentingly beautiful - that, no matter how lame or drastic this sounds, I almost felt as if I were coming home to something; something unfamiliar yet completely familiar, something untouched that had been waiting to be touched, waiting patiently until given the proper stimulus: SKIN. No artist - in fact, no one, period - can afford not to read this book. It's raw, it's affecting, it's painful, it's profound -- the distillate of life compressed into 389 wonderful pages.

Koja explores the limits of flesh in SKIN,chronicling the
desire to transcend these limits in her own unique style.
This is a great modern novel concerning extreme body
modification and the physiological scars it leaves; it
is also an accurate look at underground culture. Koja is
one of our very best writers,and SKIN is a classic.

Picked up this book from a thrift shop intending to use the cover art in a collage. Upon reading the book I was astounded that I had never heard of Kathe Koja up to that point. (Several years ago.) She is definitely the most under appreciated author of this generation. Skin is full on masterful prose and while I wouldn't recommend it to my mother, I have recommended it to most of my friends. Needless to say, the book is on my shelf, cover intact.

Skin was my first exposure to Kathe Koja so many years ago in an advanced copy sent to the bookstore i'd worked at. labeled as horror, which was something i was moving away from, it hit a real raw nerve that had nothing to do with horror or fiction.

this was an aspect of the world i knew.

art and obsession colliding with the real world.

Tess and Bibi invaded my world. i wanted to hear the music used in the performances, i wanted the image of who they were, i wanted to smell the sweat, smoke and blood of the shows.

Kathe Koja showed real emotion, real connection, the real power of compulsion. no choice, you burn for your art. no choice you read because you must.

no chipper ending as most would provide, but palatable hurt that will linger.

find a copy, hardbound if possible. you will want it on your bookshelf.

There isn't much to say about Kathe Koja's _Skin_ except this: read it. Read it now.

Sculptor Tess Bajac is looking for ways to pay the rent. Through a sometime boyfriend, she's introduced to Bibi, a performance artist who sees the potential for a collaboration between the two. They for a troupe and a friendship, and both warp, twist, and degrade, slowly but surely. Enough plot twists to keep the reader guessing, but even if there weren't, Koja's skill with the written word is so masterful that it wouldn't matter. The writing style is as bleakly compelling as the novel's subject. Worth finding and reading at all costs. The best horror novel ever written, and one of the five or so best books of all time.

"Skin" by Kathe Koja is recommended by the Horror Writer's Association as a must-read book. I'm not sure I understand why. I will openly admit that I probably missed the point of this novel, but I am a horror fan. I like books that refer to themselves as within the "horror" genre. I like it when authors aren't afraid to label themselves "horror" authors. That's just me.

"Skin" is not a horror novel. It's a novel about a sculptor who becomes involved with an avant-garde dance troupe and their charismatic, self-absorbed leader, Bibi. The sculptor and Bibi have their ups and downs, Bibi dives headfirst into this bizarre downward spiral of self-mutilation and body modification and various incarnations of performance art troupes put on shows that become increasingly dangerous and violent. That's pretty much all that happens.

The book is mainly focused on the unhealthy, borderline lesbian relationship between the sculptor and Bibi, but I didn't really care about that.

If you're looking for horror, look elsewhere. This book is devoid of it.

The book was great there was some tape in the corner... But all in all it was a very good copy of a wonderful book.

Thanks

Kathe Koja's SKIN is possibly the best horror novel ever. This book will tear U up. MayB it's not really a horror novel in the classic sense -- no ghosts or vampires, just people being their usual dark unpredictable selves. But when somebody gets hurt in this book, U will hurt. Everything from the setting, characters & happenings to Koja's brilliant, abrupt, feverishly vivid writing style will hook U, involve U, & guarantee U'll have an unforgettable reading Xperience. This woman should be on the best-seller lists. The best novel I've ever read. Also great by Koja: THE CIPHER, BAD BRAINS, STRANGE ANGELS, KINK. Her short-story collection EXTREMETIES also has a few outstanding, visionary items in it. If U're a horror reader, U need to pick up Koja's work.

This has got to be one of the worst books I have ever read, I CANNOT believe these people giving it any stars much less 5. The story has characters you can't feel for, behaving in long rambling BORING disgusting ways that don't scare but just revolt.Don't waste your time with this stupid incoherent trash and pick Intensity by Dean Koontz or actually any other horror novel. The only scary thing about this sorry book is that someone out there actually likes to read books with one long run-on sentence! Or for that matter, writers who use the horror genre to push their gay views on unsuspecting readers.