Literary Devices in Skin Hunger: A Resurrection of Magic
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
So Skin Hunger takes place in a made-up world that has a bunch of elements of fantasy (medieval-type society with kings and lords, invented languages, old stories about wizards and magic)… excep...
Narrator Point of View
SadimaIn the chapters devoted to Sadima's story, we mostly see things from her perspective, but in the third person (so there's a lot of she and her). Of course, it's not 100% from her view, since...
Genre
Why young adult? Look at the main characters in Skin Hunger: Sadima's seventeen for most of the story, and the guys she's living with are twenty-ish; Hahp is eleven going on twelve, and his roomie...
Tone
For all the bizarre and sadistic events happening in Skin Hunger, the tone (a.k.a. the author's and/or narrators' attitudes toward the story) is pretty chill. Events are related clearly, without to...
Writing Style
Maybe it's because our viewpoint characters are young folks, but their way of narrating what happens to them isn't very complicated or fancy. Sadima, for example, notices the things around her and...
What's Up With the Title?
You probably thought of this when you picked up this book, but Skin Hunger is a sorta strange title. Why would a book about resurrecting magic be called that? What do skin and hunger have to do wit...
What's Up With the Ending?
Holy ambiguity, Batman. We're not really sure what's going to happen to either Hahp or Sadima at the end of the book.In Hahp's case, he's still stuck in the academy with the wizards trying to weed...
Tough-o-Meter
Our main viewpoint characters are all young folks (Hahp is eleven and Sadima is seventeen for most of the story), so we're not seeing brain-twistingly complicated phrases or concepts in this book....
Plot Analysis
Sadima: Animal PlanetSadima's mom died giving birth to her because a selfish magician basically just let her die. This is why it's uncool that Sadima seems to have a magical gift for communicating...
Trivia
Author Kathleen Duey confirms that the storylines of Skin Hunger are separated by 200 years—but that by the end of the final book in the trilogy, the stories will be fully synchronous. (Source)Sk...
Steaminess Rating
No one actually has sex in this book, but characters sometimes kiss, and there are a few implied things. Sadima sees blood on the sheets of Somiss's bed after the boy runs out of their home, which...
Allusions
Sorry, Shmoopers, but since Skin Hunger is set in a made-up fantasyland, there aren't any references to stuff from our world, apart from plants and animals that exist in both (goats, peppers, and s...