A Thriller That Will Challenge Your Perceptions
A couple of pages into reading “Skin by Ted Dekker, I had the feeling that Dekker was building something climactic, and something that I probably would see coming. Little did I suspect just how right I was. “Skin” is a distillation of Dekker’s favorite themes and tropes. Secrets, supernatural themes, and serious theological questions. You can say what you like, but I promise you, you won’t ever finish a Dekker novel without seriously questioning your current worldview.
“Who’s to say that it takes something like a drug to mess with your perception of reality? How did Hitler deceive a nation? How can one group of people look at the world and see one thing, and another see something completely different? One sees a town, another sees a desert. One sees beauty, another sees chaos.”
Skin
Dekker is not your average Christian author, as he isn’t afraid to tackle the more serious issues in ur world today. The plot revolves around a group of people who have been driven by a storm into a seemingly abandoned town. Only to discover that they are being stalked by an idealistic killer, and that reality is not as simple as they thought.
“Instead, beauty was found beyond the surface. It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be found, she thought.”
Skin
I have to say that this book took me by surprise on more than one occasion. About halfway through the book I was pretty sure I had the plot all figured out, but Dekker saves some of his biggest twists until the last twenty pages. I won’t spoil it, but I will say this has a big payoff for those who reach the end. In my case I was so enthralled I read this in two days flat.
Beauty Beyond The Skin
My favorite thing about reading Ted Dekker is his books always cause me to think deeply on important matters. In “Skin” Ted Dekker raises the issues of beauty in our world. The mad killer stalking our five protagonists gives them a choice, either he will kill them all, or they can choose a target. There’s a catch, they must choose the ugliest of all of them, failure to do so will result in death for all of them. Conversations on goodness, and beauty pervade. People often say beauty is ‘only skin deep’. Others claim that ‘inner beauty’ is all that matters, in Dekkers harrowing novel, this concept is taken to radical new implications. What does ‘inner beauty’ actually mean? Are humans really good on the inside, or is there something within us badly in need of repair?
“Instead, beauty was found beyond the surface. It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be found, she thought.”
Skin
“Skin” is written differently than I am used to from Dekker, throughout the novel Dekker breaks the golden rule of writing ‘show, don’t tell’ frequently and with abandon, yet the prose never felt forced nor did I ever lose interest. There were moments where I wondered if maybe a certain situation could have been described differently, but these were few and far in between. I also love how Dekker put a slick reference to his masterpiece, ‘The Circle Trilogy’ in the book.
What Do You Really Believe?
“Skin” is a very raw and serious take on the concepts of human goodness and how accurately we really perceive both ourselves, and the world around us. Anyone who believes that people are basically good or that thinks morality is an abstract concept should take a look at “Skin”. A wild and thrilling novel tackling the most serious of issues. A definite 9/10.
