(S)Kin

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

After hearing this compelling YA fantasy, you’ll burn to know more about two teenagers trying to cope with a fraught magical heritage in present-day Brooklyn. Marisol, freshly arrived from the Caribbean, cannot quite connect with her new home, focused as she is with concealing her true nature from everyone. During the new moon, she sheds her skin and flies in the night sky as a creature of fire who consumes the life force of humans. Genevieve, a biracial young woman raised by her white father and stepmother, is made restless by the new twin babies in the house, her constantly itching and painful skin, and her dreams of fire, flight, and hunger. When Marisol’s mother is hired as a nanny for Genevieve’s new half-siblings, the lives of these two young women intersect and combust. Author Ibi Zoboi’s novel in verse is gorgeously lyrical and deeply emotional. Bolstered by acclaimed narrators Bahni Turpin and Robin Miles, it blossoms into a powerful song of how to come to terms with complex personal identity, the toxicity of colourism, and fraught family ties.