Perhaps it's very sad and pathetic of me but the use of a bear spirit in this kept reminding me of Disney's Brave. Don't get me wrong I adored our bear and his ferocious, confused and yet protective role in our story. But each time a bear spirit was referenced all I saw was our lead girl dressed up as Meredith. This was distracting for me. And so I think a different animal might have been a better choice. A cougar could easily have played the same role and maybe helped distance the small similarities to Brave bear spirit. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest to find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family – before it's too late . . . Hardinge gives the opposing Puritans a similar kind of treatment, with their inconsistencies and excesses laid bare, and it is to her great credit that she delineates the attractions and horrors of both sides, symbolised in the characters of James, a bastard tempted by nobility, and Symond, the noble heir who seems to shift allegiance. Makepeace, travelling from one camp to the other, reads news sheets of the same battles from both sides, each proclaiming loudly that they, and only they, are right. The problem of echo chambers and fake news is an old one. The most appealing characters here are the in-between ones: the spies, roustabouts and uncoverers of nuggets of information, those who risk their lives not in the service of ideology, but in the service of life itself.

A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge | Goodreads A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge | Goodreads

While interesting and original this young adult horror story had a bit of an identity crisis as it tried to marry its horror story with historical war. Makepeace grew up with a dutiful but demanding mother in the house of her aunt’s family. Of her father she never knew anything, except for a heritage she never asked for and which her mother fled away from. The story of the 'bear hearted girl' is a thrilling tale involving ghosts, family and betrayal. Makepeace is a girl who doesn't know her real name or even her father. When troubling dreams disturb Makepeace's sleep her mother sends her to a graveyard and this is how the story starts. I believe that the book is very enjoyable. However it contains little historical references which I see as a let down as 'A Skinful of Shadows' has been entered in a history competition. The book can be slightly confusing at the beginning, but you slowly start to feel for the book and its characters. Although the book focuses on a strange, confusing theme the book is definitely worth reading and opens your mind to how we treat animals and each other. In light of this I think that Frances Hardinge has created a beautiful book that should definitely be read and cherished. Twenty-seven months is long enough for a place to seep into your bones. Its colours become the palette of your mind, its sounds your private music. Its cliffs or spires overshadow your dreams, its walls funnel your thoughts… but Makepeace was used to fighting against the slow poison of habit. Her life with Mother had taught her how to keep herself unrooted. This is not your home, she reminded herself again and again and again.”One thing I’ve learned from reading Hardinge is that you can never predict how her stories will play out. When I first read an early synopsis for this book which describes Makepeace and the ghosts in her head—which includes a motley crew of outcasts, misfits, criminals and one dead bear—I had no idea what I was going to be in for. I certainly did not expect the plot to be so darkly twisted and yet so whimsically magical at the same time. The ideas in A Skinful of Shadows are astonishing in their originality and complexity, and I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to read a YA novel that isn’t clogged t0 the gills with rehashed tropes and paint-by-number characters. Winning the Costa Book of the Year for The Lie Tree was one of the most incredible moments of my life, and to be perfectly honest I'm still staggered by it. It did also up the stakes and increase the pressure! This was a bit daunting, and made it harder to write A Skinful of Shadows. What was your inspiration for writing A Skinful of Shadows? It’s fascinating how, once again, the author chose to show at least some religious people. And, once again, they aren’t quite right in the head. Self-righteous monsters who deny a person to be buried in the cemetery simply for having given birth to a child without being married. While claiming the moral highground. Seriously?! One can say about old Obediah whatever one wants, but he was absolutely right in his assessment of these people. Of course, that does not mean I agreed with his other world views (especially the ones about women and girls) or actions. But the author also used the religions as well as the ghosts to weave the intricate tapestry that is this book in a such a way that it illuminated humanity's neverending desire not to die. The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. Frances Hardinge is an amazing writer. She is one of my favorites when it comes to word-smithing; never purple, but frequently vivid and full of emotional shading. Unfortunately, she tends to be the fantasy equivalent of Tana French: stories filled with a foreboding atmosphere, enough struggle to make one despair, and characters one would rather avoid.

A Skinful of Shadows Novel Study *Updated | Teaching Resources A Skinful of Shadows Novel Study *Updated | Teaching Resources

Like in the The Lie Tree Hardinge brings this historical period to intricate life, but not without keeping the story suspenseful as Makepeace's family are revealed in their full horrific detail. Her journey is an interesting one for YA in that the issue is not so much about defining her identity, but the much more basic one of whether she is entitled to an identity separate from that of her family at all. The spirit is wild, brutish and strong, and it may be her only defence when she is sent to live with her father's rich and powerful ancestors. There is talk of civil war, and they need people like her to protect their dark and terrible family secret. So here we are, with a new release, fresh off the presses, straight into my greedy hands. And just like every one of her books before this, I was transported into a world of wonders. There's no real reason A Skinful of Shadows needed to have an identity crisis. Set during the English civil war, our horror story is the focus, but certainly our characters are affected by the battle events around them. Which was all well and good until our lead gal ends up caught up in a scheme that will benefit one side of the war. While it gets our characters away from certain situations this interlude of smuggling, spies, infantry movements and battlement sieges is just dull. Instead of having an engaging reason to care, and partially because our lead gal doesn't care who wins, I just couldn't bring myself to feel any passion about the war or whose side wins or losses. I didn’t know what to expect with Skinful, which perhaps made my creeping realization of being in the wrong story all the more uncomfortable. It begins with a young girl, Makepeace, feeling her way through her outsider status in a small village. It turns out that the village is populated with Puritans who looks askance at a single mother. One day Mother starts leaving her in the local cemetery so she can learn to use her skills.

3) Remember Me by Christopher Pike

If you're hoping for information about the civil war setting this is the absolute wrong book as the majority of the information is fictional. Ms. Hardinge writes beautifully. She knitted a web with her characters, their weaknesses and strengths and a spellbinding story, it was hard to put it down. It was haunting and yet mesmerizing too. I was expecting children’s story but this turned out to be a darker tale of coming of age. This time we are in the mid-17th century England, in the middle of the English Civil War between the King and the Parliament, the Puritans and the Royalists. ( “Give a man a sword and pistol,’ said Helen, ‘and leave him hungry for a few weeks, and everybody will start to look like the enemy.”) Young Makepeace Lightfoot, a daughter of a single mother in a Puritan village, learns early on to guard herself against ghosts who, as everyone knows, are aiming to invade you and set shop in your head. After losing her mother in London riots, she is taken in by her father’s rich family as a servant — and perhaps as something else, something more and infinitely terrifying.