Skin Taker by Michelle Paver
Book Review
I never rush these books.
Since picking up the Wolf Brother in the year it was first published, describing it as “haunting me” because everywhere I went, this cover of burnt brown-orange with the figures of the youth and a wolf seemed to lurk, I have been a devotee of this world. I have always been willing to read each book slowly. Only the great writers make you want to linger on every word, every image, every chapter.
Skin Taker arrived on the day of publication and since then I have fallen to my same pattern – first third of the book done in an evening or two. Then I begin to slow down, taking each scene, each convoluted plot twist with a lingering pleasure; also, a feeling of dread seeps in as the pages turn that you are nearing the end. The final third of each of the books I limit to a chapter or two on a Sunday morning.
In Skin Taker, Torak and Renn’s world is devastated by a disaster which strikes the Forest. It throws all the clans into turmoil, doubt and conflict. This is the Stone Age viewed through magic, spirits, ritual and nature. If you haven’t given this series to the young adult in your Family or just settled down and allowed yourself to be taken through this collection you have missed out. Michelle Paver has created a world which is coherent and, within the context of the environment, brutal, honest and realistic. The relationships are the things that shine through. She weaves loss, friendship, suspicion, emotion and acceptance which resonates honestly. The characters are believable and driven by their experiences, their environment and their prejudices.
Wolf and Torak’s friendship is the central character of the book in a beautifully woven binary dance of drives and motives. They are not perfect. They make mistakes, atone and apologise, always communicating through their bond of experience.
The other characters, Dark, Renn’s half-brother, Fin-Kedinn, leader and adopted Father figure to Torak are wonderfully three dimensional; so much so that they join the main characters in the front of your mind while reading through every adventure and quest.
The storytelling is vivid, immersive and gripping. You can smell the pine trees in the ice-covered Forest, feel the change of equilibrium in the world devastated by sudden change and yearn for the struggle to recover, and understand the need for Clan animals and ritual.
I am not an expert but this book could be the best-timed young adult book in one hundred years coming as it does when the world is struggling through its own devastation, comprehension, acceptance and recovery.
I am not a parent but I am an Uncle/Great Uncle and this series, and especially this book, is a lesson-narrative.
It also has an environmental message – one of taking what you need, respect and balance – this is strung through the entire series and becomes such a natural part of the narrative that it's second nature not only with the characters depiction of day to day existence but in the reader. That could be the great triumph of these YA books.
As with all Michelle Paver’s books, I came to the end to read that the ninth book in the series would be out 2022 and then my heart sank a little that it’s the last of the series. I cannot wait for Wolfbane, will be sad to come to end of Torak and Wolf’s adventures, but accept that with all great stories there has to be an ending.
