Second Skin by Christian White
This short thriller wasn’t bad, but it suffers from the same flaw that a lot of the other Audible Audio originals suffer from. Firstly, it had a “twist” ending that ruined the plot because it didn’t logically follow from the premise and the characters. What’s with the pointless twist endings? Is there a panel of marketing people who go to the authors and demand they tack one on to the end whether it fits or not? If so, they need to just stop.
Secondly in that it feels like it was a product designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. This story is one in which a character is reincarnated into another person who has her memories. Everyone who listens to it has bought into that premise, so when a main character hems and haws and worries “do you think I’m crazy?” she’s kind of criticizing the listeners. I feel like this book wanted to be a paranormal thriller and chickened out from its paranormal premise because the author was afraid of speculative fiction, like a homophobe at a gay bar convinced that everyone is hitting on him, or someone at a costume party who clearly wishes dearly they weren’t wearing one. I don’t mind buying into a crazy premise (that’s not how reincarnation works, but whatever man, it’s your story) but resent the implication that people who believe it have something wrong with them. If it’s a paranormal story, fine, but own it.
The backstory: girl dies in car accident and mother commits suicide soon afterwards, leaving the father bereft. Nine years later, another girl is troubled by nightmares and draws troubling images; mother thinks she might be the reincarnated soul of the woman who died the say she was born. The story is set in … Milford? I think they mentioned the troll sculpture, which made me think it was in Seattle as the Fremont troll is well known, but then the mentioned a famous bridge known for suicides (Prospect Park bridge? Pioneer Overpass?) They mentioned specific streets and intersections as if they were famous, but I had no idea where it was. I couldn’t figure out if it was a real place or not, but the author described it as if we were all familiar with it, like “you know that intersection where blah blah?” No, I do not know that intersection.
Pros: the plot was brisk, and kind of fun if you didn’t think about it too hard. As with some other books I’ve read recently, it went along pretty nicely until they added in an unnecessary surprise twist ending that undid a lot of the competently done plotting earlier. It was like a surprise twist added just for the point of having a surprise twist, which brought up more questions than it answered. Like, if (spoiler) were true, then WTF is wrong with that girl? Because seriously? Who does that? And also NO, that twist ending was BS because she was physically disturbed by nightmares that ruined her sleep enough that people commented on her ill health so … No. it just doesn’t make sense. It was a functional plot that got broken by the stupid tacked-on “twist” ending that added nothing of value and made her previous behavior make less sense. It sounded fine while you were listening to it, but like ten minutes later it all began to unravel as you thought about the story and realized that the pieces no longer fit.
But that’s just silly me expecting characters to drive the plot. For the most part, there aren’t any characters. No one really has a personality, with the exception of Erin’s grandmother. Well, Erin has a personality if you go with the twist ending, because seriously, who does that? That’s completely messed up. The dead daughter’s personality is that she likes musicals, except she dies right away, so we don’t really get to see more of her. Her mom’s personality is that she’s successful, except she dies right away. Stan’s personality is that he’s a dishrag who can’t get past his grief, well, his basement renovating hobby was original, I’ll grant him that. His in-laws are kind of cookie cutters too. Then there’s the infidelity and the suicide/homicide and the confession and the confrontation, but none of these people really seemed real or meaningful, so I didn’t much care about their implausible actions. “you caught me in a crime, I swear I’ll turn myself in, just let me get my affairs in order.” Who does that? No one. Idiots, maybe. TV idiots. Not real people, surely?
This feels like a good enough story, if you just want the common psychological thriller elements all recombined in a adequately written package. But the characters just all seem too stupid. No one even hints that there might be ethical or philosophical considerations for a dead soul with emotional baggage burdening a new person with her drama. Nope. They just wanna know whodunnit. There’s no time for character development in this, like seriously, Stan, get a job. Everyone feels like tepid, unoriginal, soap-opera type characters whom we’re supposed to admire because they are cast with attractive actors and filmed in pretty locations.
Well, except for Erin. If that twist ending is true, that should have been the beginning of the story because that’s just seriously stone-cold psychopathic stuff you couldn’t expect anyone but the most evil of 9-year-olds to come up with. Like way beyond Salem Witch trials stuff. And I also don’t like the twist ending because I feel like the author mocked us all for buying into his ridiculous premise.
So basically I think that the twist ending took an adequate story and broke it, but maybe that’s because I expect plot to follow from character motivations and Erin’s character and motivation didn’t seem like they pointed towards that action. (I mean seriously, who can lie under hypnosis too? Stone cold psychopaths. Francis Underwood maybe. A grammar school kid? Unlikely.)
This story is like a hot dog. It’s an overprocessed product designed to feed a wide market. It’s not stupendous, but if that’s what you’re in the mood for, it’ll hit the spot if you consume it quickly and don’t think too much about it.
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