SKin, Ibi Zoboi
SKin, Ibi Zoboi
List: $23.99 | Sale: $16.79
Club: $11.99

(S)Kin

Author: Ibi Zoboi

Narrator: Bahni Turpin, Robin Miles

Unabridged: 6 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Versify

Published: 02/11/2025


Synopsis

A FINALIST FOR THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDSIX STARRED REVIEWSA Junior Library Guild Gold Standard SelectionFrom award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi comes her groundbreaking contemporary fantasy debut—a novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore—about the power of inherited magic and the price we must pay to live the life we yearn for.“Our new home with itsthick walls and locked doorswants me to stay trapped in my skin—but I am fury and flame.”Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant. Every new moon, she sheds her skin like the many women before her, shifting into a fireball witch who must fly into the night and slowly sip from the lives of others to sustain her own. But Brooklyn is no place for fireball witches with all its bright lights, shut windows, and bolt-locked doors.… While Marisol hoped they would leave their old traditions behind when they emigrated from the islands, she knows this will never happen while she remains ensnared by the one person who keeps her chained to her magical past—her mother.Seventeen-year-old Genevieve is the daughter of a college professor and a newly minted older half sister of twins. Her worsening skin condition and the babies’ constant wailing keep her up at night, when she stares at the dark sky with a deep longing to inhale it all. She hopes to quench the hunger that gnaws at her, one that seems to reach for some memory of her estranged mother. When a new nanny arrives to help with the twins, a family secret connecting her to Marisol is revealed, and Gen begins to find answers to questions she hasn’t even thought to ask.But the girls soon discover that the very skin keeping their flames locked beneath the surface may be more explosive to the relationships around them than any ancient magic.Finalist for the National Book Award

About Ibi Zoboi

Ibi Zoboi is the New York Times bestselling author of American Street, a National Book Award finalist; Nigeria Jones, a Coretta Scott King Award winner; Pride; My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich; Okoye to the People: A Black Panther Novel for Marvel; and the Walter Award and LA Times Book Prize–winning Punching the Air, cowritten with Exonerated Five member Yusef Salaam. She is also a two-time Coretta Scott King Honor Award winner for her picture book The People Remember and her middle grade biography of Octavia Butler, Star Child. She is the editor of the anthology Black Enough. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she now lives in New Jersey with her family. You can find her online at ibizoboi.net.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) on November 20, 2024

4.5 stars rounded up (S)Kin is a contemporary YA fantasy novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore and its excellent. Drawing on the myth of the soucouyant - women who shed their skins and consume souls - it weaves together the stories of two young women living in Brooklyn. One is an undocumented im......more

Goodreads review by Zana on February 25, 2025

4.5 stars. Ibi Zoboi's books have been on my TBR since forever, but this verse novel was the first one I've read from her. I wasn't sure what to expect, and I was slightly skeptical that a verse novel could convey everything important that this book wanted to touch on, but I was very surprised that......more

Goodreads review by Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ on February 15, 2025

This got under my skin and delivered a gut punch impact. This is a contemporary fantasy based on Caribbean folklore story of two girls feeling out of place in their skin. Marisol is a skin-shedding witch who turns into a fireball at night to find her victims and sip from their life force. She and he......more

Goodreads review by kate on February 16, 2025

A beautifully and uniquely told story, (S)Kin expertly explores topics such as sisterhood, complex family dynamics, class, identity, colourism, self value and immigration. I absolutely adored the way Ibi Zoboi told Marisol's and Genevieve's story. I thought the way their narrations intertwined and p......more

Goodreads review by Maria on January 19, 2025

4.5! Thank you HarperCollins Canada for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. I absolutely loved this contemporary YA fantasy book written in verse. I really loved reading about the issues and themes confronted here (colonization, hair, skin, beauty), and I really loved learning about the Cari......more