Someone to Kiss My Scars by Brooke Skipstone

A dark tale of troubled teens seeking a new way forward through their trauma, Someone to Kiss My Scars by Brooke Skipstone is a brutal and essential read. Highlighting many of the critical and widely overlooked issues facing young people today – self-harm, abuse, sexual identity, bullying and much more – this is a fearless novel with a message far deeper than the plot.

The intensity of the story, as Hunter and Jazz try to heal one another’s oldest wounds, is coupled with powerful prose and the reminder that everyone has secrets and scars, urging readers towards empathy, self-examination, and greater kindness. Weaving fiction into such dramatic moments gives this book the feel of both therapy and confession, beneficial for those who want catharsis, and valuable to those seeking insight to their own hidden pain.

The dialogue flows with the authenticity of high school students, which can be difficult to capture in a sincere way, and the language is precise and clear, getting straight to the heart of the book’s message. Skipstone doesn’t need to impress with tangled metaphors or clever subtlety – the events on the page speak for themselves.

Someone to Kiss My Scars is visceral and challenging, as any book that tackles such relevant issues should be, for an uncompromising and savagely honest work of new adult fiction.

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