The Rif Raff Book Club met Sunday May 27 for the book selection Skin by Kathe Koja at the 'Joy-Blue' tavern on Irving Park in Chicago.

Joy-Blue had advertised that they had sculpture so it seemed like a good place to hold the meeting. Plus, Linda Joy was a 'cutting' character in the book...as it turned out, the place was a meat-market for twenty-one year olds. They all smelled like soap and expensive shampoo. The sculpture consisted of two huge sea creatures - a shark and a blow-fish - suspended from the ceiling. Bore me.

Skin by Kathe Koja

The style of her writing was unusual - kind of a 'punk poet' stream of consciousness. A lot of times it worked and sometimes it didn't. She told the story assaulting the reader through all human senses; '...it tasted bitter', '...the smell was rancid', '...his hand was hot'. There wasn't a lot of dialogue and for that reason I think Skin was a 'chick book.' Over and over you read about the main character, Tess, and how she dealt with things on an emotional level. That gets tiring after a while. The subject matter was interesting - piercings, performance art, cuttings, etc. I have to say I learned something about that sub-culture. I would probably recommend the book just because of the author's style of writing. After reading several pages and then putting the book down, I found my brain thinking in the pattern of her writing. "Book down hard on table. Must make tired legs get up. Smell of last night's bologna dinner stinking up the place. Need air..."

I thought this book was a waste of a read. It offered a different writing style that uses descriptions to move the plot along. It offered an uncommon use of adjectives and adverbs. I would not recommend anyone read this book that doesn't have some type of piercing or tattoo. It was a strange look at an American subculture that need not be discovered, explored or encouraged.