Review: I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane

Title: I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

Author: Marisa Crane

Publisher: Catapult

Length: 342 Pages

Category: Sci-Fi/Dystopia

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: Marisa Crane delivers such a thought provoking, disturbing, and emotional story in this, her debut novel. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a book I couldn’t put down.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections.

Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world. She can’t forget her wife, but with time, she can make a new life for herself and the kid, supported by a community of fellow misfits who defy the Department to lift one another up in solidarity and hope.

Review: I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself isn’t categorically a horror novel, but if you pay attention to its themes, with a real-world focus on a future that isn’t outside the realm of current discourse, it’s decidedly horrifying and is unsubtle about it.

This novel is a journey through loss and grief while facing new motherhood alone, which was not the plan for Kris and her late wife, Beau. “The kid”, which is how readers know her best, was marked by the government because Beau died in childbirth. This is done through a program sanctioned and implemented by an authoritarian regime to ‘Other’ people and ostracize them under the guise of law and order. The threat of this mark, which Kris also unjustly bears, is designed to control the citizenry, authorized and implemented by a dictator and upheld by his supporters. The mark in question seems insignificant, benign even. It’s a shadow. But those with extra shadows lose autonomy. They are scrubbed of privileges considered basic to life—fresh foods, access to healthcare, and privacy.

Shadesters, as they’re called, are monitored constantly, through government cameras installed in their homes—everywhere—which made me feel exactly the way it was meant to. Readers watch Kris too, though, which makes us sympathetic voyeurs, as she struggles against the entire upheaval of her life, mourning Beau while needing to be present for her newborn daughter. Kris eventually grows into her maternal role while still battling the demons that are grief and loneliness and a tendency to lean into alcohol to escape. And we realize she isn’t really living, she’s merely coping. Kris makes big mistakes and a powerful enemy in the process. She also mends fences and makes friends who become like family, the kind of healing she needed to allow herself to love again, while the kid is there all along, giving her mom as good as she gets.

The kid is the hero of this story. She is precocious, she is anarchy, she is curious, she is good trouble in a pint-sized body. She is a raised fist, an uprising in the making against the status quo, working toward a more just and equitable future, while the other kids at school are eating paste. That is, when they aren’t bullying her. I loved this child and the hope and humor she scattered among the detritus of the world she was born into. Those moments were a respite in a story otherwise steeped in despair.

Marisa Crane delivers such a thought provoking, disturbing, and emotional story in this, her debut novel. Like so many books, it may not be to everyone’s taste, especially if you’re looking for something light and uncomplicated. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is one I couldn’t put down.