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A review by alexampersand
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane
3.5
I started off absolutely loving the book - I thought the style was really interesting, being told through almost stream-of-consciousness vignettes rather than solid scenes. I did drift off in the middle and started to find it a bit of a struggle - I think that was a combination of the vignette style and also the plot seeming to meander a little.
Plot-wise, I feel like I might have enjoyed if it had been tightened up a little; I thought there were some really beautiful ruminations on grief and loss, and how to move on, what that can look like, and how it doesn't always feel like a linear process. But if anything, I almost found the dystopian Shade aspect to be a little distracting from that. I found it hard to get my head around the concept of multiple shadows (since that's.... not how light and shadows work), but also I'm just not sure that it really added too much into the story, other than creating a sense of isolation and "otherness" for the main characters, which I felt could have been done in a way that felt a bit more cohesive.
Plot-wise, I feel like I might have enjoyed if it had been tightened up a little; I thought there were some really beautiful ruminations on grief and loss, and how to move on, what that can look like, and how it doesn't always feel like a linear process. But if anything, I almost found the dystopian Shade aspect to be a little distracting from that. I found it hard to get my head around the concept of multiple shadows (since that's.... not how light and shadows work), but also I'm just not sure that it really added too much into the story, other than creating a sense of isolation and "otherness" for the main characters, which I felt could have been done in a way that felt a bit more cohesive.