(s)kin by Ibi Zoboi

(s)kin

Ibi Zoboi

HarperCollins · Hardcover · February 11, 2025

A FINALIST FOR THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD SIX STARRED REVIEWS A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi comes her groundbreaking contemporary fantasy debut—a novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore—about the power of inherited magic and the price we must pay to live the life we yearn for. “Our new home with its thick walls and locked doors wants me to stay trapped in my skin— but I am fury and flame.” Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant.

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Who it’s for
Serious, lyrical, and rooted in Black and political themes.
Genres
Wizards & Witches for Teens, Novels in Verse for Teens, YA Poetry
Published
HarperCollins, February 11, 2025

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About this book

A FINALIST FOR THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD SIX STARRED REVIEWS A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi comes her groundbreaking contemporary fantasy debut—a novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore—about the power of inherited magic and the price we must pay to live the life we yearn for. “Our new home with its thick walls and locked doors wants me to stay trapped in my skin— but I am fury and flame.”

Continue reading

Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant. Every new moon, she sheds her skin like the many women before her, shifting into a fireball witch who must fly into the night and slowly sip from the lives of others to sustain her own. But Brooklyn is no place for fireball witches with all its bright lights, shut windows, and bolt-locked doors.… While Marisol hoped they would leave their old traditions behind when they emigrated from the islands, she knows this will never happen while she remains ensnared by the one person who keeps her chained to her magical past—her mother. Seventeen-year-old Genevieve is the daughter of a college professor and a newly minted older half sister of twins. Her worsening skin condition and the babies’ constant wailing keep her up at night, when she stares at the dark sky with a deep longing to inhale it all. She hopes to quench the hunger that gnaws at her, one that seems to reach for some memory of her estranged mother. When a new nanny arrives to help with the twins, a family secret connecting her to Marisol is revealed, and Gen begins to find answers to questions she hasn’t even thought to ask. But the girls soon discover that the very skin keeping their flames locked beneath the surface may be more explosive to the relationships around them than any ancient magic. Finalist for the National Book Award

Mythic Tension

Serious, lyrical, and rooted in Black and political themes.

Come here for

  • literate, serious, myth-touched storytelling
  • reading that leans immersive and instructive

Expect

  • a sustained narrative read
  • genre signals from Caribbean, African, and fairy-tale traditions

Where it sits

Novels in Verse for Teens71%
Wizards & Witches for Teens62%
YA Poetry33%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Diverse YA Fiction
  • Ethnic & Regional Fairy Tales for Teens
  • Multigenerational YA Stories
  • Contemporary YA Fantasy
Show all 8 publisher categories
  • Wizards & Witches for Teens
  • Novels in Verse for Teens
  • Caribbean & Latin America for Teens
  • African American YA
Authors
Ibi Zoboi
Publisher
HarperCollins
Published
February 11, 2025
Format
Hardcover
Reading lane
Diverse YA Fiction