4.5/5A brilliant but challenging read. In Whitey's world people shed their skins every seven years losing their feelings and emotions in the process. A new skin equals a new life - the old one simply ends. And with it all relationships and love. The story's protagonist suffers from a rare condition that makes her moult more often than average. She has lots of experience in turning into someone else. She loves no one, but things get complicated when her ex-lover, Max, employs her to track down an...

2/20/2021 Sci-fi re-reads are always so fascinating! Full review tk at TheFrumiousConsortium.net.2/27/2021 I first read this novella over two years ago, courtesy of the lovely people at Unsung Stories, one of the finest British independent purveyors of weird fiction today. I very much enjoyed it at the time, so when Titan Books told me they were publishing it for the first time in America, I leapt at the chance to revisit the work of one of my favorite little-known (for now) speculative fiction

One of my favorite movies is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so of course the concept of this book was very intriguing to me. Forget the love you feel for someone when you shed your skin every seven years or so - sounds kind of like what a lot of people do without shedding skin. Sad either way. Aliya Whiteley explores life and love in all of its forms in an uniquely engrossing way. Don’t go into this book with any expectations other than it being weird, haunting, and beautiful and you won’...

The cover of this makes it look like horror, the blurb suggests it's a thriller... I don't think it's either of those things. It has an odd premise, sure enough (every adult person sheds their skin every 7 years or so, and with them, their romantic attachments) but it wasn't very deeply realised; too obviously a vehicle used to say some stuff about love. Not that weird, not quite sci fi - it's barely speculative, but perhaps I've been spoilt. Not giving up on Whiteley, but was disappointed with

Not at all what I was expecting. It ended up being surprisingly boring.

A really interesting idea!One of my favourite types of story is the "It Follows"-style central metaphor (or symbol or whatever.) It's almost clear what the symbol means, but it's elusive enough for audience interpretation. For a fiction version, Naomi Kritzer's "Field Biology of the Wee Fairies" is a good example (and a short, easy, compelling read):https://www.apex-magazine.com/field-b...The fairies almost stand in for something in reality, but they juuuust don't. And of course they shouldn't:

A slim book that is densely packed with ideas, always moves forward (much like the main character), and somehow finds the space for several significant shifts in how the story is presented and what the story is exactly. It offers tantalising glimpses of how the premise (people shedding skin every few years, usually leaving behind the things and people they loved in their previous skin) affects the world, and interesting meditations on love, sex, loneliness, friendship, change.This is exactly wha...

I have no idea what to say about this yet, except that I thought it was very good. It’s fragmented, or at least oddly shaped, like a novella that grew an extra limb or two (which, given the acknowledgements, sounds like exactly what happened). This makes it hard to get a handle on: it makes structural and thematic use of its lack of cohesion, its lack of synthesis. I read it avidly though, because it has an ease of movement that I remember from The Arrival of Missives. It isn’t as good as that i...

Imagine a world where every few years you aged your skin and became a different personThis is an amazingly thoughtful and unusual story you should give a try from a brilliant writer ‪ https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...‬

Can I just start by saying, if you haven’t read anything by Aliya Whiteley before, do it now. The Loosening Skin by Aliya Whiteley is such a hard hitting novel that reaches you on so many levels. You read the synopsis and think, boy, this is weird, but honestly, it makes the most sense. It feels like what The Time Traveler’s Wife should have been — a more realistic version with much better writing.In this new dystopian world Whiteley builds, humans shed their skin regularly. When they do, all of...

This was (as ever with Whiteley) an unsettling read. What is love anyway? How much does it shape who we are? Not an easy question to answer, but this book is preoccupied with it. Love, loss, friendship; are they worth chasing? At what cost? If you're interested in these themes then give this a read :)

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.The nitty-gritty: Whiteley cuts to the heart of love in this emotionally powerful futuristic tale, where changing the way you feel about someone is as easy as peeling off your old skin.Aliya Whiteley writes very odd stories, but now that I’ve read three of her books, I look forward to that “oddness” because her stories all have wonderful layer...

*3.5 stars

DNF at about 15%. I know that’s not a lot, but it was so slow and jumped all over. It’s not a story I appreciated the suspense for.

A superb idea but, frustratingly, not a superb novel. In an alternate reality, the end of love happens with a literal shedding of the skin: the memories of devotion remain but the feeling is cast away. Some people burn the discarded cutis, some people bury it or hide it, but afterwards they are all irreversibly changed. Sadly, the author struggles to find a single engaging story to spin from this premise and ends up constantly switching focus and skipping impatiently between time lines, making f...

This is an affecting read. From the drawing of the characters to the subtle explanation of the workings of the author's core idea, The Loosening Skin is a forensic yet heartfelt work, which holds up a warped mirror to our wants and needs. Like so many books I love it invites re-reading, once more to admire the fluid yet consistent threading of timeframes into the whole.

I'm not quite sure what I think of this odd little reflection on the fleeting nature of love and the things we hang on to. It's one of those reads that I liked less the further I got. It's my first Aliya Whiteley and I loved her prose - deft, emotionally evocative - but the second half with its unexpected shift in narrator left me completely at sea.I'll let it settle for a few days, but currently considering it a curiosity rather than a new favourite. Full review to follow.

Cor Blimey. I love Whiteley’s books, they always give me something to think about. She has an absolute talent for ramming such short books with such astounding ideas, with clear bright delivery that leaves you thinking, thinking, thinking. This book has properly got under my skin and will stay with me for a long time.

You can find my review of The Loosening Skin on my book blog, Bastian's Book Reviews.The Loosening Skin is another very smart, high concept, immersive novel by Aliya Whiteley. She is truly one of the most original talents writing speculative fiction at the moment.The novel is set in a world where humans shed their skins every few years. And with the skin, they shed something crucial: (romantic & erotic) love. So, every seven or eight or ten years, humans get a complete reset of their emotional a...

I'm giving this 2.5 stars. For a book with a message about love, I felt very little love for this book. This intended to give a meaning to love and what it means to choose love and loose love, but I just wasn't feeling it. Also the characters didn't feel whole to me. They felt like the lifeless skin layers that where shedded so often in this book. The main character, Rose, is said to be this person that has a difficult experience with the "loosing of the skin". It is supposed to be instant, she