Skinned (Skinned Trilogy (Quality)) [Paperback]

Robin Wasserman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Skinned Trilogy (Quality) | Publication Date: August 4, 2009

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. The first book in a gripping series

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; Reprint edition (August 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416974490
• ISBN-13: 978-1416974499
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,003,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 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
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Skinned (Skinned Trilogy) (Hardcover)

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

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

By 

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

This review is from: Skinned (Skinned Trilogy) (Hardcover)

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

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Adoration Of Lia Kahn, October 10, 2010

By 

Specklebang (Las Vegas NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Skinned (Skinned Trilogy (Quality)) (Paperback)

By sheer coincidence, I had just finished reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox and I was very surprised at the similarities. If I were the author of Jenna Fox, I'd be talking to my attorney about this.

Even stranger, this book comes off as YA with its teen protagonists but the language and sex and far from YA. That's fine with me, but it's disconcerting.

Well, I finished the book so I'm grudgingly giving it 3 stars. However, The Adoration Of Jenna Fox is better, creepier and more interesting.