Yes you can judge a book by its cover! This book’s cover actually tells you the whole story and if you were a skin reader like Leora and her Mother you wouldn’t have to look inside to the pages, all would be told by the beautiful markings.

In this Dystopian World, that Alice Broadway has so carefully created, your life story with all it’s achievements and failures is tattooed on your skin. Thus, you let people know who you are (so there is trust), your soul is unburdened onto your skin (so there is hope) and when you die your family can remember who you are from your skin book (so you live on). People who don’t have tattoos known as the Blanks are to be feared.

In the beginning Leora’s father has just died and she begins to suspect that something has been omitted from his skin book. What that secret is will change her life forever…..

This book is well written and it’s one of those stories that you find yourself so engrossed in that it’s a hard shock when you look up from the book and have to engage again in the real world (like having to actually get off at your Bus stop). Some of the plot devises are obvious, some not so. I won’t say which I am not a spoiler. Let’s just say two things. I am going to stop saying I don’t like YA (this and recent reads have proven this to be untrue) and I am already looking forward to the sequel after that ending!