2nd Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

Skin Deep by E.M. Crane. Delacorte Press, 2008.

genre: fiction

Andrea Anderson is a sophmore at her high school. Her life is painfully boring: she is plain, quiet, and uninteresting. Or at least, that's how she perceives herself. She goes about her life without much fuss or excitement, until a tragedy rattles her school. It forces her to think about different aspects of her life and to reexamine her classmates. On top of this, her mom volunteers her to take care of her neighbor's dog while she is ill. These two events, combined with her new perspective on life, help her to grow and accept parts of her life that she can't change.

Reading from the book jacket, "If all the world's a stage, Andrea Anderson is sitting in the audience. High school has its predictable heroes, heroines, villains, and plotlines, and Andrea has no problem guessing how each drama will turn out."

E.M. Crane gives Andrea Anderson a very realistic voice in the book Skin Deep. Her thoughts are very authentic and believable. While reading this book, I could invision one of my friends saying a lot of the things she thinks. She has a very original way of describing situations. E.M. Crane's phrases in the book often got stuck in my head after I finished reading.

"Sometimes, when I lie in bed, I contemplate how much more content with my life I've become.

I'm satisfied with the events of a certain day, like the road trip with Honora and the day Ashley nearly backed her mom-i-van into the ditch at the end of my driveway." (195)

I really liked this book. At first, I was kind of skeptical, because it seemed like another one of those stories about the proverbial "girl in the corner who learns to love herself," like a lot of other books on the shelves. This book did include that, but made it much more interesting with a unique cast of characters and a very thought provoking plot. I really liked the plot, because you don't normally hear about the conflict with the teacher, but I'm sure it has happened. It really made for a good opportunity to show another side of the characters you get to know in the beginning of the book. While you read, you learn more about the people along with Andrea.