Wednesday 26 August 2009

YOUNG ADULT REVIEW: Skinned - Robin Wasserman


BOOK BLURB:

Lia Kahn is beautiful, popular and destined for success...until the horrific accident that nearly kills her. Lia wakes up in a body that is not a body. It's a machine, designed to look and feel human, and her memories have been 'downloaded'. Lia will never age. She need never feel pain again. And, as long as she is vigilant about backing up her memories, she need never die. Struggling to come to terms with what has happened, Lia tries to return to her own life. But nothing is the same...She's one of the "mechanicals" or "mechs" now. Her friends and boyfriend turn their backs on her, shutting her out. Even her own family can't seem to understand that underneath it all, she's still the same person. Or is she? Drawn to a seemingly reckless circle of "mechs", Lia starts to see the limitless options of her new "body" - after all, there isn't anything they can't do! But there are some who would like to see the new technology vanish, and these strange mechanical beings along with it. Can you really be human without a body? And is it technically murder to "kill" a machine...? In the tradition of Scott Westerfeld comes a riveting and edgy science fiction novel which raises questions of mortality, technology and morality.


REVIEW:

What makes this tale fascinating is the authors willingness to discover what makes us human, are we just a bag of meat and bones or is it more of an intellectual process that could be transferred into a robotic shell?

Beautifully written and wonderfully creative, Robin really does generate a book that will make the reader think as the character undergoes her metamorphosis and learns to cope with how her life has changed. A solid book but one for the older readers in the household.

1 comment:

Selestial said...

This one sounds interesting. I might have to check it out (once I trim down my towering TBR pile at least).