Book Review: Wildings vol. 1: Under My Skin

Charles de Lint's most recent series moves away from Newford and into a small coastal town in California called Santa Feliz.  Under My Skin follows Josh Saunders, a young man simply trying to make his way through high school when one day he transforms into a wildcat during a fight with his stepfather.

Over the last six months this strange phenomena has been plaguing the town and a heightened police presence is in effect with a threat of a potential quarantine just around the corner.  Called Wildlings, these effected teens seem to have the ability to change shape and no one seems to be aware of their purpose beyond being a potential threat.

As with similar stories about the secret lives of teens (the X-Men immediately spring to mind), Josh has to quickly disguise his new abilities and attempt to make sense of the strange new society he is quickly becoming part of, with new friends and foes appearing in his life while one of his best friends may be hiding something herself.

As a YA book it was a lot of fun, and has me interested to see where the author will go with this action/adventure story about a young man in over his head that combines elements of fantasy, science fiction, and a little horror.

Things I’ve Noticed: It is not a good idea to ignore YA Genre Fiction

Next week I’m planning on checking out a Young Adult (YA) mystery novel suggested to me by my friend Trish. It’s called The Dollhouse Murders and she recommended it as it has a lot of horror elements she thought I might like to check out.

As I placed her copy of the book on my “To Be Read” Shelf, I wondered about which other young adult books I’d been meaning to read, so I checked out my 13-year-old daughter Kaia’s room.

Wow.

Last October, in a desperate bid to keep up with what my kids were reading I decided to spend a month reading the Twilight Saga, and afterwards I figured it might be a good idea to continue checking out some of the books my daughters are raving about.

Here’s the problem, between The Hunger Games, The Gone Series, The Redwall Series, The Mortal Instruments Series, and many, many one shots I’ve been meaning to get around to (after The Dollhouse Murders, I’m moving on to a book called The Forest of Hands and Teeth, which my wife says is right up my alley), I’m wondering how much time I’ll have for my regular fiction.

Also there is the question of reading order – where do I start with all of these books? I’m not even getting into the comic book series Kaia owns or the significantly larger YA collection my 18-year-old daughter Lorisia has downstairs.

It’s kind of funny, but right now the scariest books in my house are the steadily growing collection of books meant for kids.