Review: Scar | Alice Broadway

This review is spoiler free.

“I told the girl that I loved my scars. And I do. My scars tell my story more clearly than my ink.” 

Series: The Skin Books
Published: 2019, by Scholastic.
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dystopia
Contains: Anger, Violence, Blood/Gore, Death, Arson, Murder

‘Scar’ is the third and final instalment of The Skin Books series, following Leora Flint as she has had enough of lessons, being taught of the stories of her people from a young age. Now, she wants to make her own story.

I’ve been meaning to pick up this book since its release a year ago, yet never gotten around to it. So, as I’m currently rereading the series as a whole, it was finally time to delve into the story and complete what has been a wild ride of a series.

Leora Flint develops a little further in this instalment, becoming a more rounded and confident character in general. She’s curious, knowing the only way she’d get answers is if she approaches the source herself and delves right in. She’s determined in this instalment, determined to survive and discover the truth of her heritage and in this instalment we finally discover the truth along with Leora. We’re alongside her throughout this entire journey and we feel what she feels with the help of Broadway’s writing skill.
However, that being said, the other characters kind of fell flat for me in this novel, losing touch with them along with the size of the book as a whole. It’s short, so much shorter than the other books and I can’t help but wonder whether that had something to do with the absence of connection to the characters. Mel, Gull, Fenn, Obel, all the character we empathised with in previous books were flat and two-dimensional in this novel, leaving us to phase through the drama rather than engaging with it.

As mentioned previously, the novel itself is significantly shorter than previous books in the series by around one-hundred pages, which impacted my enjoyment of the story as a whole. I felt as if this series could have been a duology rather than a trilogy; there not being enough content to keep me engaged with the book enough to keep reading. There was a significant drop from second novel to third, regardless of it being the epic conclusion to a trilogy. Not even Broadway’s talent for atmospherics and world-building could hold it together.

Overall, I’m a little disappointed by this novel. I was expecting an epic climax to my beloved series, it starting strong yet gradually deteriorated as the story progressed. Unfortunately, this series just didn’t hold together for me, and it hurts to offer it less than the five star potential I knew it had.

3/5