Chlo is a girl with a big problem:
she was brought back to life by her scientist father and now lives with a
regime of hard-core skincare, stomach injections, and enough foundation to
cover the entire cast of TOWIE.
Because Chlo is, well, a zombie. If
she doesn’t top herself up with protein every few hours, if she misses an
injection, if she lets herself be seen in public, then the secret government
department responsible for Project Rise (a sinister scheme to raise soldiers
from the dead) will find out she exists. And that will mean the end of her
secret life and the death of her father; it will mean her mother died for
nothing.
Did I mention that Chlo only has
enough life-giving serum for a few months? So whilst she hides away in the
attic, surrounded by heaters for her poor cold flesh, and immersed in Jane Eyre
(there are lovely nods to Gothic literature in this book) her dad spends day
and night in his basement laboratory, working frantically on making more.
This is high concept stuff, and I
read “Under My Skin” in a gallop one sunny afternoon in my caravan – although
an attic-y book-nook would have been far more suitable (I was very envious of
Chlo’s ). The tale is especially good at conveying the claustrophobic atmosphere
of Chlo’s world in the first third of the book, before she puts her foot down
and demands to be allowed to go to school. It deals with teenage angst very cleverly
and equates Chlo’s situation to every young person’s desire to break away from
parental control. Only here, of course, the restraints which Chlo’s dad impose
on her are a matter of life and death. Or should I say, undeath.
I found the boarding school sections
a little stereotypical in parts, although the portrayal of toxic friends like
psycho bitch Emily was perhaps fitting in a book about monsters. (Micro-quibble
– if they’re that posh, I think they’d play lacrosse, not hockey.) But Daz is a
fab Hot Guy for Chlo, who doesn’t seem to mind her stuffing herself with
battered sausages every time she sees him.
Those chip-shop scenes made me laugh out loud btw, and were a lovely antidote
to all the dark shadowy passages in Chlo and her father’s cottage hide-away.
Some key cinematic moments:
·
That scene when Daz takes his top off
·
That scene where Chlo is caught in the
rain *shudders*
·
That scene at the school disco
This is the first book in a series,
and I was disappointed when I got to 85% on my Kindle and realised that I
wouldn’t get to see the denouement. But I will definitely be getting the sequel.
I mean I’ve just got to know what happens to Chlo when…and then she… (cut for
spoilers!)
This is less Frankenstein and more In The
Flesh – which was one of my favourite TV series in the last two years.
It’s a meaty, angsty, Gothic-y read
which teen fans of Day of the Dead, Warm
Bodies, and yes, even Twilight,
will love to get their teeth into.
Not literally of course.
****
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