Marisa Crane

This coming-of-age story is raw, sensory, and beautifully immersive. The writing is so tactile and precise. It was so easy to feel the grit of a high school locker room, the blinding heat outside a 7-Eleven, the electric current of desire and confusion that defines adolescence. It’s full of yearning and self-discovery, with teenagers stumbling through mistakes, lust, and drugs, yet never too unrealistic. I ached for the main character, Mack. We hear her insecurities loud and clear while show more the plot moves quietly around her. As anyone who’s been through it knows, when you’re in it, senior year is the whole world, everything changes. It’s beyond true for Mack. This book captures that chaotic moment so well, the longing, the weight of self-doubt, and the fragile, painful process of becoming yourself. The basketball subplot didn’t fully land for me, but the tension and stakes around it did. I could see this becoming a powerful movie adaptation. Paired with the right score, it would be unforgettable. Quiet, aching, and vividly real, give this one a read.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for access to this book. show less

I picked up Marisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself because its title amused me, wondering if it might be something like Murderbot or Robocop. The book turns out to be a dystopian novel that reminds me at times of 1984. A near-future surveillance state provides malefactors and misfits with extra shadows to let other people know they are not socially acceptable. It is unclear whether the shadows are actual surveillance devices or simply difference makers. The story also reminds me show more of the Vonnegut short story “Harrison Bergeron” in which talent and beauty are penalized in the name of equality. Here, the government serves a “Balance” that establishes social homogeneity as the ideal. Crane’s novel is heavy on theme and symbol but light on plot. A woman talks to the ashes of her dead wife as she struggles to raise their daughter. Mother and daughter both bear the stigma of extra shadows. The social themes are admirable, but I wish the surveillance technology were described more explicitly. 3.5 stars. show less

This is rather an on-point dystopian. The president has changed the punitive (in)justice system from imprisonment to adding shadows, a sort of mark of Cain, and multiply shadowed individuals, Shadesters, are subject to extra taxes, limited employment, and limited to a single shopping day a week. Kris, with an extra shadow, is left with her wife's Beau's daughter to raise, and because Beau died in childbirth, the child was given an extra shadow.

The first half of the book is a complete downer, show more well written, and not without some humor, but a major postpartum depression. It does improve, but the oppressiveness of the big-brother continually monitored state and of the brutality of the condoned violence of the enforcers is solid throughout. show less

This is my favorite book of the year thus far. I love the conversational piece of it that makes the book move at the perfect pace. I would only want my kid to be like bear, she is just the perfect character. I’m not even joking when I say I ripped a page out to use as part of my wedding vows next year: “you’ve stamped me forever, like a library card.”