Skinned (Skinned Trilogy) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—In a high-tech future, Lia Kahn is a rich, glamorous, "it" girl at a prestigious high school. Then a car accident leaves her body mangled beyond repair. Rather than let her die, her parents take advantage of a new procedure that downloads the contents of her brain into a sophisticated mechanical replica of a human body. Lia is now a "mech," known in derogatory slang as a "skinner." She still feels like Lia, but she no longer breathes, eats, sleeps, or ages. She can no longer enjoy the easy high of a b-mod, the ubiquitous mood-altering drug that gets the rest of her friends through lunch, and her boyfriend only touches her when he's drunk. She is kicked off her beloved cross-country team because the coach believes her new body gives her an unfair advantage over her competitors. Religious extremists hold a protest when she returns home from the download operation, holding up signs that say "God made man. Who made YOU?" Lia can only see her new body and new social status as a tragedy. Thoughtful readers, however, will recognize that the true tragedy is her self-imposed isolation, and that the world is much bigger and more brutal than the halls of one wealthy high school. The book is written in snappy, short paragraphs with enough sarcasm, humor, and plot momentum to engage reluctant readers.—Megan Honig, New York Public Library
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From Booklist

With a premise reminiscent of Mary Pearson’s Adoration of Jenna Fox (2008) and salted with a bit of the nasty competition underlying Cecily von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girls formula, this tale of life after brain-download-into-a-mechanical-body explores the possibilities faced by 17-year-old Lia Kahn, neither fully dead nor currently mortal. Wasserman creates a plausible future where advanced communication and entertainment technology enhance clothing as well as teen social life. Lia was a leader among the rich, shallow girls at her school; now she is an outcast due to her status as a “mech head,” whose plastic body may be tough but whose emotions are those of her flesh and blood peers. A younger sister’s baleful dismissal, problems with past and potential boyfriends, auxiliary issues of fundamentalists, thrill-seeking mech-head games, and an irreversible mistake form the core of the plot, which moves swiftly toward a dystopian denouement. Well composed and engaging, this is an obvious choice not only for Jenna fans but also for readers of Peter Dickinson and George Orwell. Grades 9-12. --Francisca Goldsmith

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; 1 edition (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416936343
• ISBN-13: 978-1416936343
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #386,360 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great new series, September 9, 2008

By	Jessie Potts "Book Taster" (Terre d'Ange) - See all my reviews

Skinned is an exciting new novel from the Seven Deadly Sins author. Make no mistake though, this new novel is nothing like the books. For Scott Westerfield and M T Anderson fans this is a must have for your teen sci-fi collection.

Skinned is about the life, death and re-life of a spoiled rich popular girl Lia Kahn. When Lia gets in a car accident and almost dies she undergoes a life-altering process of downloading her brain into a machine that looks like her old body. The process is an extremely hot topic and many people believe that the skinners, as these `robots machines', are called aren't human and should be destroyed.

Her friends leave her, her boyfriend starts dating her little sister, and a new society of mech-heads want her to join them. This is the first book in the trilogy dealing with what it means to be a human, what it means to be alive, and finding yourself. 5 stars.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, August 31, 2008

By	TeensReadToo.com "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

Lia Kahn was perfect. She had a perfect life, perfect friends, and a perfect boyfriend. She was popular and beautiful and everyone wanted to be with her and know her -- until the accident changed everything.

When Lia is in a fatal car accident, she finds herself awake in the hospital. She should be dead, but she knows she's alive. She can't feel her body, but she knows it's there. Lia has become the latest patient in the "download process" -- a way to download your memories and brain functions into a computer-based body that is made to look and act human. Lia is angry about the download process. She doesn't want to be a "skinner" -- the awful nickname for download recipients. But she also isn't ready to give up on her life.

Being a skinner isn't easy, though. Groups of people have rallied against the download process, calling it unethical and saying the skinners are without a soul. Lia's friends seem to have turned on her and her boyfriend can't stand to be near her anymore. She's Lia, but she's not the same Lia, and she's not sure how to handle her new life.

Add in the mysterious group of skinners that Lia encounters, plus humans that would do anything to be part of the download process, and Lia isn't sure anymore what exactly it means to be human.

SKINNED presents an interesting look at what really makes us us. Are we human when we have flesh and blood, or is it our memories that make us who we are? Can we ever have the same life again? An interesting and engaging look at medical ethics and humanity, SKINNED is the beginning of a new trilogy.

Reviewed by: Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Start to Trilogy; Doesn't Stand Alone, October 25, 2008

By	DC Book Girl - See all my reviews

I would actually give this 3.75. Well-written, original plot and thoughtful arguements on the meaning of life and religion. I found the drug-use, teen sex and language a bit too much for "young adult," but it did fit with the world of privileged teens with no responsibilies that Wasserman has created. I would have liked to see more details of the history of the future that Wasserman has created in the first book--I can only hope that she fills us in more in book two. I also found the playing of the race card at the very end of the story strange--in a world that has left so much of its culture behind, it seems odd that racism would still be an issue; especially since the wealthy appear (at least based on their names) to be fairly multi-cultural. I am curious to see why the future society is still prejudiced agaist African-Americans or if that will even be explored.