Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne
Published by Page Street YA on September 17, 2024
Genre(s): Horror, Thriller
Format: Ebook
Pages: 304
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Available on Kindle Unlimited
plot details
Such Lovely Skin follows Vivian, a teenage Twitch streamer who becomes entangled with a mysterious horror game connected to a sinsiter entity. As strange events begin to blur the line between the game and reality, Viv realizes she’s being manipulated by something for more dangerous than she ever imagined.
The deeper she falls into the demon’s grasp, the harder it becomes to tell what’s real and whether she’ll be able to escape with her identity intact.
my thoughts
The premise immediately caught my attention. Horror centered around Twitch streaming? A demon steals your identity and slowly manipulates you into destroying your own life? Sign me up!
Unfortunately, the execution did not live up to the concept.
Let me start with the positives because it had one thing I thought it did well.
The demon is genuinely creepy.
I think I’ve mentioned before that supernatural horror isn’t really my favorite, especially when demons are involved. They tend to be a hard sell for me, so I knew going into this book that it already had one strike against it. Even so, I thought the horror surrounding the demon was effective.
The idea of something slowly taking over your identity, manipulating your relationships, and trying to convince you that the only way out is to hurt yourself is genuinely disturbing. Those moments gave me the heart-in-my-stomach feeling I was hoping for.
My biggest issue with Such Lovely Skin was Viv. I understand she’s a teenager. Teenagers are impulsive, dramatic and occasionally self-centered. That doesn’t make them automatically unlikeable/ But with Viv… she felt like the kind of person I would’ve actively avoided in high school and early college.
She constantly reacts with “ugh” and “wtf” to everything around her, which certainly feels realistic for a teenager, but after a while it became repetitive and started pulling me out of the story.
I was also, extremely, bothered by how she handled her sister’s death. Viv played an active role in what happened, yet she seems detached from that grief for much of the novel. Meanwhile, she’s absolutely spiraling because one of her friendships is falling apart.
The emotional priorities never made sense to me.
Even worse, she allows her mother to carry the guilt of believing she’s responsible for her daughter’s death when Viv knows the truth. The was difficult for me to move past, especially when it felt like her parents kind of forgave her. Instead of feeling sympathetic, I found myself growing frustrated by her choices.
The pacing didn’t help, either. It took me about 30% of the book before I finally became invested, but the momentum didn’t last.
Around the halfway point the story started losing me again. It felt slower than I expected for a horror novel, especially one built around such an interesting concept. There were several moments where I considered adding this to my ever-growing DNF graveyard. In hindsight, I probably should’ve listened to my institincts.
Then there’s the romance. Come on, girl! The fake dating storyline that was supposedly meant to confuse the demon felt unnecessary. And suddenly the loser goth kid becomes attractive Viv needs his help?
Not buying it.
Instead of adding emotional stakes, the romance only distracted from the horror elements that interested me far more.
final verdict
I really wanted Such Lovely Skin to lean into its strongest idea: the psychological horror of losing control over your own identity.
Whenever the demon was actively manipulating Viv or making me question what was real, the book had my full attention.
Unfortunately, those moments were surrounded by a protagonist I struggled to connect with, uneven pacing, and a romance that never felt necessary.
By the end, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the novel wanted me to sympathize with Viv because of everything she’d been through. Instead, I kept thinking about the choices she made and how difficulty she was to root for.
In the end, Such Lovely Skin had all the ingredients for a creepy YA horror novel, but it never quite came together for me. I’m glad I finished it, but also kind of wish I’d left it in my DNF graveyard.
lets chat!
Would you rather read a book with an unlikeable main character or a weak plot? Which is harder for you to overlook?
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