Shawntelle Madison has created an intricate world, phenomenal characters, and a story so thrilling you won't want to put it down.

I LOVED it!

OK first off, I have to say how beautiful is this book cover!? Seriously gorgeous.

Under My Skin is set in a dystopian world where the world was run ravage by illness and disease. Now the Guild rules and every year, at the age of 16, the youths in Myria are tested to become Water bearers and serve for the Guild. Most find it a privilege, but Tate Sullivan wants nothing to do with it. Living in a small impoverished coastal town with her family, Tate has plans for her future and career. Her life takes a twisted turn when her and cousin Zoe pass their tests and are swept away from all they know and love. Beneath the world they thought they knew, lives secrets and lies Tate could have never imagined, and now she has to fight for the life she so desperately wants to keep.

I've been avoiding YA dystopian for awhile but I read the blurb and just had to read this. So worth it.

Onto the characters, because aside from the amazing plot, the characters really sealed the deal in this being an epic new YA Dystopian series. Yup, I said it...epic.

Tate is the heroine and I really couldn't think of one thing I disliked about her. Which doesn't happen often I might add. She's a fighter through and through, courageous, smart-an absolute warrior. Quinn, the Master of Blades- there's so much going on with him that I think we have yet to see, and trust me when I sat I can't wait to find out. I enjoyed his character a lot. The main villain, Master Dagon is written exquisitely. Sinister, evil, commanding, everything you need in an antagonist.

There's nothing more you could ask for in a book from this category. Move over Katniss and Tris, Tate Sullivan has arrived and her story has just begun!

As will appear on the blog:

I love the concept of this. The thought of it… the horror of it. It’s chilling!

So, what worked for me?

Quinn – I really enjoyed his character, he had the potential to be up there with the best book boyfriends. I do like a man who knows his way around a blade, who’s got the danger of death about him. A bit like Valek (Snyder’s Poison Study), he had the makings of being totally swoon-worthy. However, I was stopped short from salivating, but only because he doesn’t get enough page time. I want to love him, and I think I could. But I finished this book with an ache of longing.. and feeling safely in the ‘like’ zone.

General Dagon – I love this character too. He’s a nasty piece of work, and the things he makes Tate do, especially to her family, it’s downright despicable! It makes for great reading though. I mean, the main antagonist is always there, she can never truly escape him until she destroys him.

Concept – Like I said above, the overall concept of this book is quite chilling. And disturbing to imagine happening to yourself. Complete loss of control of your mind and body but you’re still able to bear witness to it all? Yikes! I think Zoe experienced the worst of this. *shudders*

Pace – Quick, quick, quick! It didn’t let up, and that made it hard to put down!

World building – This wasn’t over extensive. And for me, that worked. I think a story can get too bogged down in building the world and the culture of it, but here there is just enough to understand and get pulled in. Does that make sense? Lols.

What didn’t work for me?

The logistics – I think that when you start using aspects of the mind, and this kind of body snatching, the mechanics of it can become a bit tricky. I didn’t wholly understand why Tate couldn’t stay where she was safe, why she had to go back into dangerous territory. And why certain methods couldn’t be used at other times? It’s a really small niggle, because in general I couldn’t complain. Like I said, it’s a tricky one to take on methinks and Madison does it well.

Love, love, love – I like that Quinn and Tate have this kind of connection. But at the same time, as mentioned above, I didn’t feel that Quinn had that much page time, and so I found it more difficult to believe in the deep feelings they obviously have for each other. I would have liked there to have been more stolen moments somehow.

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I thought this book presented something refreshing and exciting. At first, there are glimmers of other books, similar in this kind of genre, like Reckoning by Kerry Wilkinson. I was reminded of that title in particular. But it’s as I say, mere ‘glimmers’, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

As a series it has so much potential; I hope to see much more of Quinn, and actually, I hope Dagon makes a cameo at least. I loved the glamour of it, contrasted against the dirty underbelly of the culture. The classic battle between a corrupt rule and a ‘resistance’ was well played here too. It’s a stellar read, and I cannot wait to read how the story continues.

4.5 Get Out of My Head Stars

If you are like me you have started some # of dystopias excitedly thinking that they will be about a post-apocalyptic future filled with a great story and world building only to find out that it is a love triangle thinly veiled in an underdeveloped world OR it is basically a romance filled with insta-love and inner dialogue about the ever changing color and dilation level of the love interests eyes OR it is about some special snowflake girl/boy who learns they have enormous power and then easily defeats there nemesis after some inner turmoil of accepting their power. For all of you readers who have suffered through those dystopias like me I want to you meet TATE.

Tate doesn’t have a superpower, she isn’t really special in any usual quantifiable way, she isn’t the most beautiful girl in the land (she actually has a scar on her lip) and she doesn’t have a tragic past. She has grown up poor but utterly loved by her family. In fact most of her thoughts about the future, before being chosen by the guild, are of what profession she can chose to be able to help her family financially. The only thing we find that is truly special about Tate is her will to fight to survive.

Tate has been chosen by the guild to become a Water Bearer, a position so shrouded in mystery that no one outside the guild seems to know exactly what that entails. Tate finds out the hard way when she starts hearing a voice in her head and knows the smile she just saw in the mirror is not her own. She must fight with someone else for control of her body and no one has won that battle before.

"To me, war used to be merely words in books. I read about fighting and death, but I had no context. Living with General Dagon in my head had taught me that war wasn’t powerful words used to convey conflict, but it was something else far more frightening, far more deadly. I was an unwilling passenger with the General to the battlefield. "

Tate fights with him every day just to stay conscious and have any control of her own body. They are so different and he has conquered many hosts over the years. The General might have the advantage in this fight. Him being in her head is degrading and his favorite game is to lull her into thinking she is safe only to show up again when she least expects it.

" I clasped my left hand over my mouth. The sensation was nauseating. The way he used me was such a violation of my free will that I couldn’t stomach the idea of letting him speak again. "

What I really liked about this book:

Tate is never over the top. She is a normal teenage girl caught in a horrible situation. She is a little shy and unsure of herself but she is also strong. Not in a physical sense but in resolve and character, she never gets super human strength or can take over the general’s experiences to be effective in combat or anything like that. The only thing that she can rely on to save her from the General is her will and her brain. Thank you. You do not need to have a superpower to be important in a story.

Tate grew up loved so she values family and people over things. She is devoted to those she loves and will do whatever is necessary to protect her family even if it costs her.

I love that the Shawntelle Madison used a real book The Art of War to help teach Tate tactics and help her to find ways to combat the General. Madison changed the title and a few of the words to fit better into her story but the ideas were the same.

" Know thyself and thy enemy. If you do, you should not fear any battle you encounter with them. If you only know yourself, for every battle you have won, you have also lost. If you do not know yourself or your foe, you will suffer defeat every single time. "

There is a smidgen of romance, but just a smidgen, enough to keep the hopeless romantic in me at bay. There are no declarations of undying love or I saw him across the room and my knees buckled nothing too cheesy. There are two people working toward a common goal and they happen to have a few feelings for each other over time. It was simple sweet and just enough to help Tate by knowing she wasn’t alone, there are people who wanted to help her.

I enjoyed the premise of the story. One of my biggest fears is that my mind will go and I won’t have control of my body. It would be so much worse to be a passenger along for the ride while someone makes decisions for me that I would never agree to. Worse still is blacking out and waking up not knowing what my body did while I wasn’t there. It built up a delicious tension that made my stomach knot.

The technology behind how they prepared the water bearers for the transfer of consciousness and how that came about took something very real in nature and tweaked it a bit. It was an interesting foundation that I hope the author builds on in following books. She gave just enough information to peak my interest and not so much information that I got bored with it or tried to pick the science apart.

For me this was a great beginning to a series. There is an introduction to the world with a bit of backstory and you are shown what life is like currently. The problems with the current society are slowly introduced and there was no info-dumping. Right now there is a really good foundation to build the rest of the series on and I’m excited to see what will happen next.

A few of my fears:

There were some things that are touched on in the book but left a little vague. This is the first book though so I hope in next books these are fleshed out a little more.

I have a love/hate thing happening with dystopias currently in that sometimes they start out really strong and then by the third book they crash and burn. So that is always my fear with any new dystopian I read since there have only been a few that I have ♥♥♥ed until the very end. BUT this isn’t Shawntelle Madison’s first rodeo. She has completed a trilogy before so I’m really hopeful that like Neal Shusterman’s Unwind series she can complete a really strong story all the way through.

Overall:

I found this an easy story to fall into with good pacing and interesting characters. Tate is my Girl and I will gladly be following her on the rest of the journey.

Thank you to Crushstar Multimedia LLC via Netgalley for the arc