Under Your Skin: A Novel
3.5/5
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About this ebook
Gaby Mortimer seems to have just about everything: a great job on a popular TV morning show, a handsome and successful husband, an adorable eight-year-old daughter, a comfortable life in the “Toast Rack,” one of London’s most gracious neighbourhoods.
When she discovers the strangled, lifeless body of a young woman on the common near her house, she has no idea that her charmed life is about to go into sickening freefall. There are connections between the two women—some of Gaby’s clothes are found in the dead woman’s apartment; the woman may have been seeking a job as a nanny for Gaby’s daughter. As Gaby is pulled into the investigation, the underlying tensions in her own life start coming to the surface, and frightening truths seem destined to come to light, whether she wants them to or not.
Suspenseful, stylish and eerie, and peopled with characters who feel as real and close as your friends and neighbours, Under Your Skin is an irresistible page-turner about how we live—and how easily it can all fall apart.
Sabine Durrant
SABINE DURRANT is a former assistant editor of The Guardian and a former literary editor of the Sunday Times whose feature writing has appeared in numerous British national newspapers and magazines. She has been a magazine profile writer for the Sunday Telegraph and a contributor to The Guardian’s family section. She is the author of several books, including Under Your Skin, Lie With Me, and Finders, Keepers. She lives in south London with her husband, the writer Giles Smith, and their three children.
Read more from Sabine Durrant
Under Your Skin: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Remember Me This Way: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Under Your Skin
55 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Gaby discovers the body of a young woman in the park while out on an early morning run. She is outraged and mystified when the police question and eventually arrest her for the girl's murder - Gaby had never met her before.Originally this book intrigued me, but before long the use of the first person present tense began to grate, as did Gaby's personality. She was self-pitying, passive, overly concerned about her job as a daytime TV host, a job she seemed not even to respect. Then eventually the twists began and the "reveals' came pretty much out of nowhere. The final reveal was dishonest to the reader.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A well-written who-dun-it with an expected twist at the end. Enjoyable.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book has been compared to Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, both of which I really enjoyed. But I am sorry to say Under your Skin isn't in the same league. Yes, there are the obvious contextual similarities of the unreliable protagonist, who is not very likeable, and the failing marriage. The writing itself, however, is nowhere near as engrossing. I found it to be choppy and there was a lot of irrelevant content that added nothing to the plot. I listened to the audiobook version and was thankful for the option to listen at double speed to get through those passages because otherwise I may have given up. Saying that, it wasn't all bad though. While the beginning was certainly slow, the story became increasingly absorbing, there were some nice twists and I did love the ending (I may be in the minority), though I admit, the end might leave you feeling a bit cheated.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Endings can be incredibly powerful.An unexpected ending can completely change our perspective on what has gone before, and I have persevered with several very dull or irritating books in the hope that their endings would somehow redeem their middles. (This is doubtless because I remember finding Louis de Bernieres' 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' a real drag at A level, until I reached the ending and decided that it had made all the preceding bumpf worth reading...sadly, no ending since then has ever been so successful in reclassifying boredom as patience.)The conclusion of Sabine Durrant's psychological thriller 'under your skin' did change my perspective, but, sadly, not in a way I liked.== What's it about? ==Daytime TV personality Gaby Mortimer discovers a woman's body while running on the common near her home. She immediately reports it to the police...who quickly target her as their only suspect. Appalled and horrified by her arrest and overnight incarceration, Gaby descends into a world of paranoia and tension as she tries to persuade DI Perivale to look elsewhere for suspects. The victim is a Polish nanny; could Gaby's new Polish nanny be involved somehow? Circumstantial evidence appears to be link Gaby to the crime, but it could equally well apply to her increasingly distant husband, Philip. And then there's Gaby's stalker...That's the plot, but really this novel is about a life teetering on the brink: outwardly sucessful, respected and someone who 'has it all', it quickly becomes clear that, actually, Gaby has startlingly little of value: few close friends, a dwindling career (how dare a nearly 40 year old show her face on daytime TV? Better replace her with a younger model, sharpish,) and a disintegrating marriage. Really, this novel examines the fears simmering underneath middle-class suburban life and how they can affect women. (Hint: badly.)== What's it like? ==Instantly intriguing. Gaby is anxious from page 1 as she notes that:'You are never alone in London, even in the dead of night, even in the bone-cold chill of a pre-dawn March morning. There is always the possibility of someone watching, following, seeing what you're up to. I'm not sure I like it.'Being a first person narrator allows Gaby to draw us in; it's impossible not to cringe with her when she gets 'social stuff' wrong - expecting someone to smile when they don't, flirting slightly when it's hideously inappropriate. It appears that the tensions in her life are causing her to unravel (since surely she didn't become a TV personality without previously possessing better interpersonal skills?) She is so aware of her flaws that we want her to forgive herself:'My breath is ragged. I can feel it, hot, in my chest. It's all wrong; I'm not doing it right. I'm hopeless; I'm a person who can't even run properly'.And yet, it would be so easy not to like her. She's privileged, employs a nanny and a cleaner (and has no idea where the latter lives), and is ferried to and from her rather vacuous work each morning. Durrant's skills lie in manipulating our response: she's a bit arrogant, perhaps, but also obviously vulnerable and being set up for murder by someone. Perhaps the most chilling moment in the whole book is when DI Perivale coolly informs her that as long as there's opportunity and evidence, no one gives a damn about motive. Look how easy it would be to have your entire, comfortable middle class existence destroyed, Durrant whispers to us.== What's not to like? ==And then...and then there's the ending. Obviously, there needs to be a big reveal; it's a crime thriller. And in retrospect, if you flick back through the previous pages, (which I did, muttering "what? WHAT?") the supporting evidence for the denouement exists, but there's no getting away from my ultimate dissatisfaction with the ending. To explain why would be to reveal too much, but I have a genuine complaint, I assure you!Oh and if I was being picky, I would mention how strange it seems that the police never show any interest in any other suspects. Ever.== Final thoughts ==I'm loathe to write this off before I really enjoyed reading it. Durrant writes well, incorporating some lovely turns of phrase. She creates tension effectively and made me really care about the characters, but, oh, that ending...It's a very good psychological thriller, and very cleverly done, but be prepared to want to tear out the last 10 pages. Seriously.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book is so delightfully British. As an American and an anglo-phile, this was very appealing to me.
That being said this book has some substance. I've seen reviews that compare it with 'Gone Girl' but I don't think that it's quite as good. It's not as well crafted and the end is a bit of a stretch (I thought so anyway, I'd be interested in hearing other's takes on it.) I love suspense novels, but I have the worst time reviewing them because I hate to give anything away.
This book is worth the read if you enjoy books such as 'Gone Girl' or even a good Agatha Christie novel. Nice light airplane reading.
(This review is based on an advance review copy supplied through NetGalley by the publisher.) - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I love a good psychological thriller and this book fits the bill. The story is told by Gaby Mortimer, a daytime television presenter who finds the body of a woman in the woods near her home. Unexpectedly she finds herself under suspicion by the police who think that she had something to do with the murder.I found this to be a complete page turner. It's a very easy book to read and it just flows and made me want to read just another page, and another one...... It's been a while since I've devoured a book so quickly.The ending was a clever surprise and it made me want to go back and flick through the story again. I think the author did a great job of making sure that readers don't know what to expect.This is a gripping story, one I enjoyed every minute of and if you like psychological thrillers then I'd say it's one of the best examples of the genre that I have read.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5From the outside, one would think Gaby Mortimer had the perfect life. A successful, handsome husband, an adorable daughter, glamorous career as cohost on a morning show & a beautiful home in an affluent part of London. They'd be wrong.
The house is great & Millie is a sweetie. But Gaby & Philip are not the people they used to be & have drifted apart. And at work, Gaby has the feeling they are planning on trading her in for a younger model. She does her best to keep up the facade in both places but the stress is getting to her.
Things really start to unravel when she stumbles over the body of a young woman while running in the park. Before she knows it, she's the prime suspect. DI Perivale seems to have it in for her. Incessant questioning & a night in jail lead to her bosses suggesting she take a few days off...TV speak for "you're fired". And don't even start on the throng of press camped on her front lawn. All while Philip is attending meetings in Singapore.
There are peripheral characters that flesh out the story, notably her BFF Clara, a determined journalist named Jack & Marta, the nanny.
The novel has a good premise. The problem is how long it takes before you really get invested in the characters & start to pay attention. It's almost as if a different author wrote the last third, by far the best part of this book.
Initially, I found Gaby a difficult person to like. She comes across as brittle, flighty & fake. I know she's desperately trying to hold on to her life but her personality & behaviour make it hard to feel any sympathy for her & you really need to for the story to work. Philip is depicted as absent & self centred, a bland & pretentious kind of guy. It's only in the final pages that they become interesting & more three dimensional.
The plot itself is promising but you have to care about the characters or find them compelling to get into a book, preferably early on. Much of the dialogue is initially superficial & a tighter edit on Gaby's endless streams of consciousness would have helped. I know other reviewers have mentioned the way DI Perivale was depicted. I didn't have an issue with his character but PC Morrow comes across as a giggly schoolgirl spouting all kinds of nonsense. A more realistic characterization would have added some much needed weight to the story, particularly in the beginning.
As with all books, it's a matter of taste. If you've read something by this author before & enjoyed their writing style, no doubt you'll like this as well. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I went into this already thinking I'd figured out who the killer was -- and I was right. But that didn't mean I didn't enjoy it; I read it specifically because I suspected I knew who the killer was all along. And I love unreliable narrators. It was a fun read. I wish I could rate it higher, because I really did enjoy it, but I thought that killer was obvious all along and there weren't, in my opinion, enough twists to make it feel "worth" it to me in the end.