This book starts of really well, then takes too many turns and loses itself in the details only to jump to an end that fast that I wondered if I skipped 10 chapters.The story deals with travels along lay lines through time and space and that is interesting and could be a lot more fun.The characters are rather flat and because there are so many you don't really get attached to any, I think the only one I somehwat liked was Wilhemina (I hope that's how you spell it). The others felt too detached to me as a reader to really care.The pacing as already mentioned was off. Although the detailed description was nice in parts it was boring in others and didn't match with the ending at all.The narrator of the audiobook did a very good job, although I turned up the speed by the second half due to the slow pacing of the novel.If not for the ending I would recommend this novel to people who are interested in historical fiction and like slow descriptive novels.This is a series I don't think I'll continue. This book. Where to start with this book. The summary made it sound so action packed and interesting, and it really did not live up to my expectations at all. I've also heard wonderful things about this author, and how good he is, but this book did not showcase that at all.I wish he would have spent more time explaining and developing the idea of the ley lines and how to jump across them to travel in time. I wish he would've fleshed out some more of the characters and their development, mostly the main character, Kit.The story takes place over a few weeks, maybe months. It seems as though Kit just sort of accepts everything around him, like he's been adventuring for years, when in reality he just learned that all of this stuff is real. There's no moment of doubt or fear for him. He just goes with it, which I feel is quite unrealistic?The book also jumps around a lot, making it hard to follow at times. There are about 3 main storylines going on. The first being with Kit learning about the skin map and traveling around to save his great-grandfather. The second is of Kit's girlfriend, Mina, who he lost in his first "jump", and she is in historical germany inventing coffee. And the third is of The Man who is Map, the guy who actually has the map tattooed on his body. It was hard at times to follow what time period each character was in, as it didn't explicitly say from chapter to chapter. The bad guy also didnt seem all that bad to me. I wasnt never really "afraid" of him or worried when the protagonist encountered him, which is fine, but I think we all love a good and scary villian.I felt as if the author had full confidence that the reader was in it for the long haul, meaning that this book was really meant for a series, and couldn't really be a stand alone book. All in all not a horrible book, but definitely not what I expected.
What do You think about The Skin Map (2010)?
Intriguing space and time settings and characters. Slow start, but improved through the chapters.
—rightsail
This book was interesting and ley line travel is cleverly done.
—Alyson
