A review by edenclam
The Skin and Its Girl by Sarah Cypher

challenging emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“There is no truth but in old women’s tales.” 


The Skin and Its Girl is told from the perspective of Elspeth “Betty” Rummani, a woman with dense blue skin who is on the verge of a life altering decision, who is visiting her Aunt Nuha’s gravesite in search for answers within her family history. Through recounting stories of her life and the women she grew up with, she ruminates on life, love, trauma, cultural and generational borders and interconnectedness, and the power of choice. (Vague spoilers ahead).


The concept of “the skin” is one that shifts and develops throughout the story as the reader learns more about the characters’ history’s, specifically Nuha’s. We learn that the more significant skin isn’t Betty’s bold blue skin, but rather Nuha’s adopted skin, taken on as a form of disguise, which has given her a sense of safety, as well as a sort of responsibility to hide within. I didn’t personally feel any stake in Betty’s decision to stay or go with her lover, and I wonder if that was intentional, in the way that the more important skin was Nuha’s, so were her decisions. 


Although this story is beautifully meditative on questions of life and love and decision, there are some details that didn’t fully connect in my mind, mostly surrounding Betty's strange characteristics; her blueness, denseness, the chips in her skin, seeing the future, none of it clicked for me personally, but I would love to hear other people’s interpretations. I also didn't fully understand the purpose of the fire and her brother; was it solely to remind Nuha of the beginning of her life as Nuha Rumani? A sort of beginning of the end?


Despite my general confusion, I found quite a handful of quotes from this novel that really resonated with me. Here's a few that I think capture what I took from Cypher's story:


- “Love is, might be, feels like, a kind of fairy tale too -- one that can begin only once the story we thought we know blows apart”


- “There is literally no end to unanswered questions, questions we don't even know how to ask yet. Living is doubting. Living in doubt is a good thing.” 


- “This is your history. Memorize it and tell it to anyone who will listen”


- “But whatever way your heart takes you, just go. Pick up the pieces later.” 


- “When the waters of the world have run together again, everyone is a citizen of the same land -- their cries reaching over the unbroken water like long fingers”


Thanks NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for access to an eARC in return for an honest review. 
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