I am honestly not sure why I didn’t enjoy this all that much. The plot felt a bit scattered at times and the last few pages felt like a major info-dump in comparison to the pace of the rest of the story. The world building was well done but I think the main thing is that we only learn bits and pieces of En and I didn’t feel like much connected her to the reader. She felt kind of flat

Fun and intriguing read! Dystopia fantasy is such an underused setting and I wish more books were able to handle this background in a compelling way. I honestly enjoyed the character arts and the accompanying playlist.

This follows En who lives in a dystopia world where her city is divided by the rich and the poor. En meets a guy who she thinks is going to help her and make her life better, but he actually has marked her to be a sacrifice. We discover along with En what that means and how she saves her life.

Skin and Earth is a graphic novel that ties into the album by Lights. It was a fun multi media concept that had QR codes that linked with songs from the album. This was a pleasant surprise that the quality was as good as it was and the artwork was stunning!!!

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me a copy in exchange for my honest review

Skin & Earth is a multi-media experience graphic novel set in a dystopian world with a theme of hope. There are QR codes throughout the book you can scan to take you to images, music and other multi-media content. The author Lights is an artist I had not previously heard of. I listened to her music for the first time when I scanned a QR code. It's beautiful and I loved listening to the music as I read. The imagery in the graphic novel is well done and I liked the storyline a lot. I hope to read and hear more from Lights in the future.

'Skin & Earth' with story and art by Lights is a graphic novel with a tie in to a concept album by the same creator.

A young woman named Enaia Jin, or En for short, lives in a divided city where no one really has hope. The only difference is that the rich might live slightly longer. She has a brief affair with a guy who makes her take a tattoo. She later finds out the tattoo has marked her as a sort of sacrifice, but En isn't one to just let fate happen.

I liked this clever project. The chapters begin with a QR code and a song on the companion album to listen to. The story is a bit overdramatic for my tastes, but fits better with the album I think. The art is not the best I've ever seen but not a bad effort for someone who admits to learning the whole process.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Diamond Book Distributors, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

It's a weird graphic novel, but I loved the way it shows the dystopia and I pretend to see Lights work more.

Between the artwork and the story line I fell completely in love with this comic. I can't wait to read the rest of this series.

This one is a miss for me. Could not really follow the story and the artwork simply did not make up for it.

I rather enjoyed the weird dystopian future depicted in this book. The way it is laid out can leave you feeling disconnected from what is going on at times. This happens mostly because not everything is spelled out from the beginning. It takes a while to get a feel for the world, such as how the cities are laid out and what caused things to be the way they are now. The payoff at the end is pretty good though. I liked the strange path it takes to get there too.

Enaia Jin is a good guide to this world. She is a bit of an outsider, but she is able to pass between the different stratums of society. During the early parts of the book, the reader is able to learn about her and begin to identify with her before any of the big shifts in the story occur. A lot of the other characters are pretty forgettable though. They all serve to tell Jin's story and don't contribute much beyond that.

Art-wise there is a ton going on. The images range from mundane events to fantastical and I thought they were all done equally well. One thing that sets the book apart is the soundtrack that was put together to coincide with the different chapters. There are codes you can scan with a smartphone to queue up the music for each section. It gives a more interactive experience and plays with the senses more than other comics. Between the story, the protagonist, and the artistic elements, this book hit the points for me. I could see others being put off by it, but I think it's worth checking out for something beyond the norm.

I'm always down to read a graphic novel, but one written by Lights! Now that's exciting! I was beyond thrilled to see that she chose to include a playlist of songs to listen to as the story progressed. I found that to be incredibly unique. The artwork was stunning, and I can't wait to see more volumes in series, but also other series by Lights as well. My best friend is simply obsessed with her, so I'm glad to say I will be picking up a copy of this for her as soon as I can! I know she will love it as much as I did.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I truly appreciate it

The first thing that made me want to read Skin & Earth was the cover as it really stood out to me.

And then I realised it was written by Lights! I saw her perform back in …possibly 2009 so I was super intrigued to see what she was creating almost ten years later.

The best thing about the GN is that Lights also created a full album to go along with it, and within the GN it tells you which song pairs with that section.

This helped to make you really immersed within the world as you could tell how the two went hand in hand and influenced each other. This was such an interesting way to approach music, art, and writing together.

As for the graphic novel itself. I really liked the world building; its a dystopian where the land is pretty much unlivable, its all toxic and killing many people.

The story follows Enaia who lives in the desolate outskirts whilst attending school in the wealthy capital. She’s also in somewhat of a relationship with someone she doesn’t know much about and he leads her astray.

Shortly after his betrayal Enaia has a premonition of meeting a mysterious white haired woman. I really liked her design as she felt like such a contrast to Enaia, she’s bold and unruly, and ends up leading her even more astray.

(Whilst also brining the bravery out of Enaia too, encouraging her to get the revenge she deserves.)

To a whole different world in fact.

Its once the story takes places here that I enjoyed it the most as not only do we start to get some more answers and explanations to everything, but we also get to see more creativity in how that world looks.

My only real complaint about the graphic novel, which feels super harsh, is that at times the art doesn’t hold up as well in some places. I noticed it was often the faces that slip a little in their quality. I know this is completely made by just Lights so it feels rude to acknowledge that but it did create a bit of a disconnect.

But overall I loved it. Its covers such a wide range of topics such as environmentalist, finding your true self, abusive/controlling relationships. There is a lot of symbolism in here and given this has all come from Lights is amazing.

It also gave me the chance to listen to her older stuff which gave me such a fun trip down memory lane.

I loved the artwork and concept, although the storyline gets a bit messy and confusing. A nice dystopian style comic nonethless!

What attracted me to snag this off the "available now" shelf was the cover, I recently went on a "Rat Queens" bender and the cover art for "Skin & Earth" was vaguely reminiscent of that for me. Alterna-punk feminist adventure? Yes please! Well, that was the assumption I made going in, admittedly I didn't even read a description and just went for it.

Things were a little different than my snap judgment but not necessarily in a bad way.

We are certainly in a dystopian or apocalyptic future, conveyed not only by the storyline but a muted pallet of color. It's not confirmed if this is Earth but it doesn't really matter. The author conveys a lot with her use of shades.

In a nutshell we have a young woman Enaia, she's shown to us with socially orphaned overtones, we see right away that there are classes here and that the divide between them is abyssal. Enaia meets a handsome young stranger, they have a passionate summer that we glimpse in flashbacks. They pass the warm months with sexy visits to the swimming hole and end things with a tattoo, an old school stick and poke type. Enaia gets dumped unceremoniously, gets bummed, meets a bodacious babe that helps her go on a revenge rampage and ends up in.... another realm? Yeah, there are some twists and I would definitely read the next chapter in Enaia's story to get some more answers.

Note: This book is intended to be paired with music, while I didn't get the opportunity to pair them together I do enjoy Lights' sound.

I sadly haven't been able to access this volume on any devices, and now it's gone *poof* to where I can't even attempt to access it through NetGalley.
:/
I have a feeling I would have loved the art style and the story, so I'm sorry I can't provide a good opinion on this. I'm giving it 3 stars because that is an "average" rating for me.

It was pretty good at first but fast, it became messy, confused.
I think it kind of went too far and lost me.
Also, I didn’t fell for the characters the way I thought I would.
I guess my expectations were just too high.
Still, I didn’t hate it?

Here's one more tuppen'orth about this from someone who knew nothing about Lights – what she is, who she is, anything. She's certainly an artist – trying strong visuals on every page and getting it right almost every time. But is she a graphic novelist? Well, there the jury is definitely still out. In this world, where our heroine is the sole teen able to cross the divide from the world-enveloping, polluted slums, to study at the 'nice' (ie nasty) University, she can't see anything special about herself. Nor can we, really, as she does nothing except mope with a dweeby, grungy boyfriend who isn't really her boyfriend. Him out the way she falls into the most ridiculously obvious trap, and guides us to the point where our hearts sink that this isn't a self-contained story, which came far too early for me. I wanted to like the mixture of romance and fantasy/dystopia (the YA genre of choice, of course), but I couldn't really get through the muddle of exposition at the end to care what these mediocre characters did to each other. A decent try, and I'm sure it will mean stuff to her musical audience, but it wasn't ultimately for me.

I have been listening to Lights' music since 2008 or 2009 and I love every single, EP or album she has created. When she announced her latest album Skin & Earth and the accompanying comic I decided to first listen to the album a couple of times to get the idea and feel of it, before diving into the story she created. While reading the comic I did not use the interactive codes (too much hassle, I just like to read) and I didn't listen to the album.

I loved the whole dystopian setting with the feeling that (another) apocalyptic event is just around the corner and there isn't a whole lot that can be done about it. The colors used for each character and the background in the panels just add to the atmosphere of this society and the world En has to live in.
The storyline was quite good as well. For a bit, I didn't really know where it was going and what exactly the endgame would be. At first I thought it would be an action-packed fight against the leaders of the place En lives in, but it turned out even better: an emotional rollercoaster of discovering who En is and what her purpose in life is or at least could be. I liked this, because there was also a lot of background to En's life. We get glimpses of the past and learn how the world came to this.
Character wise I was really happy to have a book without 100 main characters. There are just about 3 or 4 important ones, that's it. It makes this comic very easy to read and allows you to focus more on the (sometimes complex) story.

How is Lights so talented?!

Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for a copy of this for review purposes. I have been a fan of Lights for years now. And this graphic novel is plain brilliant. I cannot wait to get my hands on a physical copy for my collection. This was just entertaining and moving and I enjoyed every second of it

I love Lights as a singer and performer, so I was very intrigued when this comic was announced. I didn't know if it would be a cohesive narrative, or just a sort of vanity project. I think it's a really great graphic novel standalone, even if you're not familiar with Lights' album that accompanies it. Great art.

Skin & Earth is an immersive experience to the core. Not only does each track of her album refer to part of the comic book, but the comic itself has QR codes within to link you to her music and bonus features. This makes reading a whole new level – one that I adored. Is there really anything Lights cannot do? There are all these gorgeous little world building details in the panels, and at the heart of the comic is so much more.

There’s layers of environmentalism, of heart break, and dystopic settings. It is way more complex that I expected. There are these large overarching storylines that span the entire book. At the same time, there are these webs of stories that layer on top of each other making this complex and hypnotic web. We fall into it gladly. Lights’s music lulls us in and soon we are right there with her main character Enaia. It is a richly woven tapestry of myths, legends, and beliefs.