Under the Skin, Michel Faber
Under the Skin, Michel Faber
9 Rating(s)
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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Under the Skin

Author: Michel Faber

Narrator: Fiona Hardingham

Unabridged: 9 hr 16 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/16/2012

Synopsis

Hailed as "original and unsettling, an Animal Farm for the new century" (Wall Street Journal), this debut novel lingers long after the last page has been turned. A "fascinating psychological thriller" (Baltimore Sun), this entrancing novel introduces Isserley, a female driver who scouts the Scottish Highlands for male hitchhikers with big muscles. She herself is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, Isserley listens to her passengers as they open up to her, revealing clues about who might miss them should they disappear-and then she strikes. What happens to her victims next is only part of a terrifying reality. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory: our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion. A grotesque and comical allegory and a surreal representation of contemporary society run amok, Under the Skin was internationally received as the arrival of an exciting talent, rich and assured. "A fascinating book...The fantastic is so nicely played against the day-to-day that one feels the strangeness of both...Remarkable."-New York Times Book Review

About Michel Faber

MICHEL FABER is the author of the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, The Fahrenheit Twins and the Whitbread-shortlisted novel Under the Skin. The Apple, based on characters in The Crimson Petal and the White, was published in 2006. He has also written two novellas, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (2001) and The Courage Consort (2002), and has won several short-story awards, including the Neil Gunn, Ian St James and Macallan. Born in Holland and brought up in Australia, he now lives in the Scottish Highlands.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Paul on March 17, 2014

UPDATE! This is a very unusul situation for me, but this is a very unusual book. I'm actually looking extremely forward to seeing the movie. The director Jonathan Glazer doesn't do many movies but he did do Sexy Beast which is a must-see, and he did do this amazing advert : [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Maggie on April 08, 2021

After reading this, I have completely lost my taste for eating vodsels. Holy hell. I knew very little about this book (and even less about the film adaptation) when I began it, only that it began with an alien woman picking up hitchhikers in rural Scotland. The agonizingly patient unfolding of the pre......more

Goodreads review by Leonard on January 31, 2020

I have been drawn to this book after watching the striking film, inspired by Faber’s novel and starring Scarlett Johansson. My account of the book is based on my reading half of it only. I have to admit that it just jumped out of my hands. This book is a very unsettling, even sickening one. The story......more

Goodreads review by Carmen on March 28, 2016

ALL SPOILERS FOR THIS BOOK ARE HIDDEN UNDER TAGS Isserley, too, often ventured out at hours of such prehistoric stillness that her vehicle might have been the first ever. It was as if she had been set down on a world so newly finished that mountains might still have some shifting to do and the wooded......more

Goodreads review by Kinga on December 08, 2015

Sometime in March Craig posted on our book group Facebook page the following message: “Hello Group, At the risk of sounding alarmist, I want to alarm you all. I am currently rereading Under The Skin for about the sixth time, and I noticed today from tube adverts that the film adaptation is out March 14......more

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