Crashed, by Robin Wasserman

After reading Skinned I was determined to not read the sequel. If you had read my opinions on that book you would know that I did not enjoy many aspects of it. But then my curiousity set in and naturally, I went to the one place guarunteed to settle it: the Internet. After reading a spoiler summary of Crashed I decided to read it because it didn't seem as boring as Skinned. And it wasn't.

Stop here if you have not read Skinned or any information on it (that means my post)

Lia is accustomed to her new life as a skinner, or more the more politically correct term, mech. She has a place where she belongs and everything is hunky dory (is that supposed to be hyphenated?). Then she's sent on a mission by Jude, the guy in charge, and all sorts of things happen that no longer allow her to retain her sheltered (not really life because she never dies) life away from the orgs (that would be us). I don't want to give you spoilers so I'll say this. Skinned was only the introduction. Crashed is the good stuff.

The big morality issue in this book doesn't really apply since we don't have any skinners but it goes like this: Is humanity the human body or is humanity the souls within the bodies. The people against the skinners call them machines and computers, soulless entities calling themselves human. From the point of view of the book (Lia's) we are pushed to see humanity as the soul. I tried to think about this from the other opinion but then it got me thinking. If our bodies are what make us human and equal to one another, then how are we any better than animals? It must be our souls that make us special because otherwise we might as well be machines. I'm sorry if I confused you--it makes sense in my head.

All the characters in Skinned and Crashed are very round. Many tend to be lopsided in the bad direction but they all have a good side and good qualities or a bad side and bad qualities, if that is the case. This makes the book so much more enjoyable and easy to get through because much like real people, you can predict reactions, but you never really know.

I'm sorry that this post isn't very funny. I'll try harder next time.

4 stars. Big improvement from Skinned.



I am crazy about the silver and purple streaks.