(S)Kin
by Ibi Zoboi
High School    Versify/HarperCollins    400 pp.
2/25    9780062888877    $19.99
e-book ed.  9780062888891    $10.99

In this verse novel with a basis in Caribbean folklore, fifteen-year-old Marisol and her mother, Lourdes, have recently emigrated from the Caribbean to Brooklyn. The two are soucouyant, shapeshifting “monsters” who shed their skin during the new moon to feed on the souls of their enemies. As a poor Black immigrant girl, Marisol finds that the world she inhabits sees her as monstrous in more ways than one. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve, by contrast, has lived in New York her whole life with her white father and stepmother (she has a Black biological mother). Although she enjoys privileges such as wealth, light skin, and U.S. citizenship, Genevieve feels trapped in her own body: enflamed rashes make her feel like her skin “will burn and melt / right off my fucking bones.” The two girls’ lives intersect when Lourdes is hired as a full-time nanny by Genevieve’s stepmother for her newborn twins, and they come to realize that despite their very different upbringings, their worlds are more interconnected than they could have imagined. Expressive verse alternates between Marisol and Genevieve’s perspectives, with judicious shifts in placement emphasizing connections between them. In a story that explores class, nationalism, colorism, colonialism, and ancestry, Zoboi skillfully captures the complexities of identity and belonging, offering a powerful narrative about two girls struggling to understand who they are and where they come from.

From the March/April 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.