Book Report: Skipshock
By: Cassie Birk
Welcome to the Book Report. This is the nitty gritty on one of my latest reads to see if this month’s book, Skipshock by Caroline O'Donoghue would be a good fit for your TBR.
Content Warnings: While this book is appropriate for a YA audience, readers may want to keep the following triggers in mind— Character death (on page and off, no detailed descriptions), violence (on page, moderately detailed descriptions), grief (on page, detailed descriptions), injury/body horror (human branding on page, moderately detailed descriptions), sexual content (teenage sex work off page and romantic sex on page, no detailed descriptions), malnutrition (on page, moderately detailed description), alcohol (underage drinking/drunkenness, on page with moderately detailed description), animal neglect (malnutrition of street cats on page with implied death off page), anti-Roma racism (on page, detailed descriptions but via a fantasy allegory as opposed to real-world Roma people), corpse mutilation (on page, no detailed descriptions).
Spice: There is one sex scene that takes up about a page from kiss to finish with only the initial kiss being described in detail. To me, it’s about a 1 out of 5, with 0 being no spice.
Image by Zeromaro Originally Posted in Toki No Wa Wiki
Skipshock starts with a life-altering train ride. On her way to boarding school, still struggling with the death of her father, Irish teen Margo is unwittingly transported to a militantly-restricted interdimensional rail system where time moves differently. Northern worlds have shorter days, with time passing much faster, progressing two times, four times, even twelve times as quickly. Travelling between worlds takes its toll and constant use of the railways leads to developing a deadly illness known as Skipshock.
No profession is more prone to Skipshock than travelling salesmen—boys who have the highly controlled visa to move from world to world in order to sell items found in one universe to the next. The salesman Moon, one of the persecuted Lunati people, happened to be on the train on which Margo finds herself. Throughout the book, the two of them must evade the southern guard to get Margo home and find themselves colluding with the underground revolution looking to equalize travel and immigration between worlds.
The book is the first in a duology, told in two POVs with equal chapters from both Moon’s and Margo’s perspectives, each picking up where the other left off. Romance readers who enjoy a meet-cute and/or a star-crossed lovers trope with a relationship that doesn’t put spice ahead of plot will likely enjoy this book. Dystopian fiction lovers might also want to pick this for the dark ruling government oppressing people in an interesting way. The readers that I think will have the most fun with this read are those who enjoy fantasy and sci-fi blended with thoughtful worldbuilding and soft magic systems. With a cliffhanger ending, this book won’t be the best for readers looking for a standalone, as there are some major plot elements that are left to be resolved in the next book.
This might be for you if:
You enjoyed following Lyra and Will in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and want to see more young people fall in love as they travel through interconnected universes.
You were invested in Chihiro’s journey home in Spirited Away and would have wanted to see where more stops along that train she worked so hard to get on would lead to.
You enjoyed following Laia and Elias in An Ember in the Ashes and want more teens that reluctantly get mixed up in a revolution, including one with a childhood spent with an oppressed nomadic people.
You were living for the time shenanigans and steampunk aesthetic of The Last Hour Between Worlds and need more awkward couples trying to figure out each other’s feelings while also trying to focus on getting out of peril.
You were seething against the Guild in Last Exile and their power to limit transportation, hoard resources, and didn’t know how two teenagers were going to stay alive when their mission clashed against such powerful interests.
You loved the sci-fi trolley and platform system in The Mimicking of Known Successes, but would rather have a mystery fighting cops than working with one.
The author, Caroline O'Donoghue is probably best known for her adult novel, The Rachel Incident, but this book shares more DNA with her debut YA series The Gifts. Caroline is most active on her podcast Sentimental Garbage and did a series of episodes around fantasy to help promote Skipshock.
What Readers Think
“Skipshock was an original and entertaining fantasy tale focused mostly on action and adventure, but with some romance along the way. I loved the premise of the book, with the train lines connecting worlds, but only verified salesmen being allowed to ride them. Both Moon and Margo were interesting characters who developed and grew as the story progressed. Their relationship was believable throughout, and I liked that the romance elements were not rushed into. The plot offered twists and turns along the way that kept things interesting, and while the calculations of age and the passage of time got a bit complex as the characters moved between the different worlds, the world building was mostly nicely handled. This first volume left me keen to read on to see how things will conclude in book two, so I am giving this one 4.5 stars. Recommended for fantasy fans looking for a fresh premise who don't mind a fantasy-sci-fi blend” —Nicki Markus via Goodreads
“This was a case of it’s not you, it’s me. This book was not for me but that doesn’t mean that others will not really enjoy it! I don’t read or love a lot of fantasy or YA (although I have loved books in both genres before) and this one just really read like YA. I missed the sophisticated writing of her previous book which I absolutely loved. This book felt like a slog for me and I struggled to get through it. Some of this was the formatting of the arc which was absolutely the worst and made me not want to pick it up. But sadly, a lot was the plot. I needed more character development to really care for the characters and I felt like I had a lot of unanswered questions about the worlds the characters inhabited. I did enjoy the twist at the end—almost enough that I might read the next book. I think if you love fantasy, you will enjoy this one! If you don’t, skip it.” —kelleyarena via Storygraph
Cassie’s Review: 4/5
I totally adored this world! I’m a sucker for books that play with time and this book did that in a way that was both interesting and helped enhance the stakes of the adventurous storyline. The isekai storyline works well here to bring readers into the world, which I was envisioning to be more steampunk-esque in nature (but that might be my bias towards steampunk) that played with both sci-fi and fantasy elements. While I usually gripe with soft magic systems, the magic here has enough internal logic I wasn’t asking too many questions and felt lived in even without more explicit rules on page. The macguffin didn’t break the rules and added the mysterious elements to the story that made the twist at the end extra rewarding. What dropped this down to a four for me was the characterization. I wanted more depth from the side characters (especially those whose deaths are supposed to be gut wrenching) and a duel POV would normally be a really good way to see different sides of characters depending on whose lens we are looking through at a given time, which wasn’t really done here. While this was marketed as a sizzling romance, Moon and Margo’s friendship was more believable than the romance for me. I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a slow burn or an instant star-crossed love and it seemed like the scenes between them were also waffling between the two.
Thank you to Walker Books US for providing an ARC for review.
