(S)KinReview posted February 3, 2026.
Versify (HarperCollins), 2025. 6 hours, 16 minutes.
Review written January 31, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 National Book Award Finalist
This paranormal novel in verse features two viewpoint characters. Marisol and her mother have moved from the Caribbean islands to New York City, and it's the new moon - time for Marisol to shape shift. She sheds her skin and shifts into a fireball witch who flies through the night and wreaks vengeance on the person her mother directs her to. Her mother and the mothers before them have shapeshifted for generations, and they thought that in New York City, where no one believes the old stories, they might find it easier to be human, not treated as monsters.
Also in New York City, Genevieve, with darker skin from an unknown mother, lives with her white father and white stepmother. She's got a terrible skin condition - some kind of allergy or eczema, always burning. Her father studies folklore, and she wonders if her mother was some kind of mermaid.
But when a woman shows up to tend her baby siblings who can soothe her skin, Gen wonders what kind of magic is happening.
Ibi Zoboi takes actual Caribbean legends and shows us what it might be like to be one of those mythical creatures - and dream of better things in America. How might that work out for teens who only want to be normal humans, blending in with their peers?
A powerful story of kinship and identity.