So I've been reading Robin Wasserman's Skinned series for what amounts to no good reason other than the cover art being a ripoff of Scott Westerfield's far superior Uglies. And while it does share similarities with that series, primarily in that they are both dystopian speculative sci-fi where society is far too superficial for its own good, while I was reading it, I couldn't help but shake that I'd read this before. Somewhere not Uglies. Somewhere far more innocent.
And then it hit me. I'd read this same premise some ten years ago at Camp Ramah, only then it involved chimpanzees instead of robots and far less sex and drug use. It was called Eva, and at the time I thought it was pretty awesome. Actually, it probably is still pretty awesome, because it was written in 1989 and contained pretty much every concept contained in Skinned, but with a protagonist who didn't make me want to claw my eyes out.
(Note to YA authors: If you are going to make us spend five hundred pages inside a character's head, at least make them someone likable. STEPHANIE MEYER ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?)
The setting of Skinned is ripped, in parts, from both M.T. Anderson's Feed (another one of my favorite books from middle school) and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (A great, if grown up, novel). It almost seems like Wasserman read a lot of dystopian lit in developing her books, but forgot to add any touches to make it her own.
Oh. Wait.
She replaced the monkeys with robots. Because everything's better with robots.
The plot is essentially a pastiche of the aforementioned Eva and Uglies, but with robots. We are introduced to our heroine Lia who, like Eva, has through the power of science been transferred from her ruined-in-a-car-accident flesh and blood human body into a replacement. Cue hospital montages of our heroine learning how to use her new body, feeling angsty about it, and having existential crises over whether or not she is still herself. Our heroine eventually reintegrates into normal society, where she, like Tally, falls in love with a cute-but-not-up-to-standard boy who she eventually manages to betray. She later, like Tally, takes up with a boy who is "one of her kind" and they do daring and crazy things that run counter to the goals of boy number one.
This is not to say that Auden and Riley are exactly exports of David and Zane (David and Zane are far more interesting) - they have some of their plots switched around in terms of who gets severely injured and who our heroine winds up with - but they're still pretty close. One is quirky and impassioned, but imperfect. The other is a handsome daredevil. The difference is that in Uglies, we like these characters because of who they are first, and because our heroine likes them second. The only thing I ever felt for Riley was that he was sort of like Edward Cullen - strong, handsome, immortal, slightly off limits. Our heroine can't get over how perfect and mysterious he is, but we're sort of wary about the guy, not only because of the company he keeps. I eventually got over it, but, I mean... you can sort of tell I favor Zane and his crims, right? He was awesome.
So where does that leave Skinned? It's a pastiche of cliches from all over the dystopian lit genre. It is neither original nor particularly compelling, especially if you've read the source material and know what Wasserman is ripping off. Surely it's better written than the similarly-designed Eragon or Twilight Saga, but in the end it's a cliche that borrows heavily from its predecessors and puts too much riding on the back of a whiny, spoiled teenaged protagonist.
Three out of five. I don't feel like I should demand my afternoon back, but don't spend money on this drivel. Find it at the library if you're so curious, but you're better off reading the works it steals from.
