Rating: 2/5
Review:
Not for me
I wasn't very keen on Skin Deep, although that response is
entirely personal. Liz Nugent is s very
fine writer, but I just didn't find this life-story of a manipulative,
sociopathic woman very involving.
The opening is excellent as Delia, the 50-year-old narrator
finds herself destitute in Nice with a corpse in her wrecked flat and
intimations of the dishonest, Ripley-like way she has lived. However, we then go back to her childhood on
a small Irish island and follow her development as she grows up and becomes the
almost monstrous character we meet at the beginning. It's very well done; Nugent writes extremely
well and creates a convincingly frightful character – as she did so well in the
excellent Lying In Wait. Here, though, for
a very long time it is another Portrait Of A Dreadful Childhood And Adolescence
In The Oppressive Ireland Of The Past and then more of a psychological study
than a thriller or even an involving narrative. I'm afraid I didn't find myself drawn in at
all and I also found the brief inserts of narrative from other characters to
show the damage Delia leaves behind her.
I even got rather bored, which I certainly didn’t expect from Liz
Nugent.
So, I'm afraid Skin Deep wasn't for me. Plainly, I'm in a pretty small minority but
for all its oppressive atmosphere and clever characterisation, I can't really
recommend it.
(My thanks to Penguin Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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