New Skin by Miranda Nation is described as a love story. But there’s no silly fluff or cringe in this (I think) brilliant book.

This is my kinda love story - it’s dark, ambiguous, tense and enthralling. Leah and Alex are flawed, troubled, but also captivating and charismatic. Nation’s writing is accessible but not simple or average, I felt really engaged and the book was well paced throughout. I will definitely be picking up more of her books in the future! this is a 4.5 star book for me.

Thanks NetGalley for the eArc of this book!

Intriguing is the best word to describe this book. Leah and Alex have an intriguing relationship over a number of years. The book goes through their relationship and the way they continue to search for each other in a sense over the years. Whilst the storyline was very detailed at times I put the book down due to how the characters became as it got very deep and intense during parts of the book.

I have to admit from the outset that I really didn't enjoy reading this book. I requested it because it was set in Melbourne in the 1990s and I thought it would be a nostalgic read as I went to Melbourne Uni in the early 1990s (albeit 5 years before this novel starts). But Leah and Alex's lives are so different from my own lived experience that I found it very hard to relate to.

This is a bleak story about a destructive relationship between two very unhappy young people. There is a lot of focus on how much they love each other, but from my perspective it's more about obsession and co-dependence and they're certainly not good for each other. Their lives seem to be one crisis after another exacerbated by the drugs they rely on to dull the pain. The downward spiral never really seems to hit rock bottom.

Leah gets her act together in her 20s, but Alex can't seem to find happiness anywhere and they're both at risk of destroying all the good parts of their lives.

It's hard to say if this book is well-written because the subject matter was so depressing. I found the absence of quotation marks for speech difficult to come to terms with and a lot of the sentences were really short and choppy. But perhaps that was by design to represent the pattern of the characters' thoughts. The ending also felt a bit pat - 95% of this novel is a graphic description of how messed up these two people are over a 30-year period, and then it's all wrapped up in the last little bit. This book is described as a love story, but it definitely doesn't give the warm and fuzzies.