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Thin Skin: Essays
From a National Book Award finalist and a powerful literary mind, an incisive new work examining capitalism's toxic creep into the land, our bodies, and our thinking.
For Jenn Shapland, the barrier between herself and the world is porous; she was even diagnosed with extreme dermatologic sensitivity--thin skin. Recognizing how deeply vulnerable we all are to our surroundings, she becomes aware of the impacts our tiniest choices have on people, places, and species far away. She can't stop seeing the ways we are enmeshed and entangled with everyone else on the planet. Despite our attempts to cordon ourselves off from risk, our boundaries are permeable.
Weaving together historical research, interviews, and her everyday life in New Mexico, Shapland probes the lines between self and work, human and animal, need and desire. She traces the legacies of nuclear weapons development on Native land, unable to let go of her search for contamination until it bleeds out into her own family's medical history. She questions the toxic myth of white womanhood and the fear of traveling alone that she's been made to feel since girlhood. And she explores her desire to build a creative life as a queer woman, asking whether such a thing as a meaningful life is possible under capitalism.
Ceaselessly curious, uncompromisingly intelligent, and urgently seeking, with Thin Skin Shapland builds thrillingly on her genre-defying debut ("Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant" Carmen Machado), firmly establishing herself as one of the sharpest essayists of her generation.
For Jenn Shapland, the barrier between herself and the world is porous; she was even diagnosed with extreme dermatologic sensitivity--thin skin. Recognizing how deeply vulnerable we all are to our surroundings, she becomes aware of the impacts our tiniest choices have on people, places, and species far away. She can't stop seeing the ways we are enmeshed and entangled with everyone else on the planet. Despite our attempts to cordon ourselves off from risk, our boundaries are permeable.
Weaving together historical research, interviews, and her everyday life in New Mexico, Shapland probes the lines between self and work, human and animal, need and desire. She traces the legacies of nuclear weapons development on Native land, unable to let go of her search for contamination until it bleeds out into her own family's medical history. She questions the toxic myth of white womanhood and the fear of traveling alone that she's been made to feel since girlhood. And she explores her desire to build a creative life as a queer woman, asking whether such a thing as a meaningful life is possible under capitalism.
Ceaselessly curious, uncompromisingly intelligent, and urgently seeking, with Thin Skin Shapland builds thrillingly on her genre-defying debut ("Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant" Carmen Machado), firmly establishing herself as one of the sharpest essayists of her generation.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2023
122 people are currently reading
11317 people want to read
About the author
Jenn Shapland
4 books365 followersJenn Shapland is a writer living in New Mexico. Her first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award, among other honors. Shapland has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin. She currently works as an archivist for a visual artist.
Her second book, Thin Skin, will be published in August 2023 by Pantheon Books. Her essays have appeared in New England Review, the New York Times, Outside, Guernica, and Tin House.
Her second book, Thin Skin, will be published in August 2023 by Pantheon Books. Her essays have appeared in New England Review, the New York Times, Outside, Guernica, and Tin House.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
January 25, 2023
I might be biased
April 19, 2024
3.5 stars
I have mixed feelings about this book because while I agree with the author on a lot of what she talks about and sense that we are very compatible politically, the writing in Thin Skin felt heavy and dry to me. I liked that Jenn Shapland wrote about how environmental degradation affects our health, the pressures of capitalism and work and what it means to live a meaningful life, and the notion of being sensitive and having thin skin. I really resonated with her last essay about not wanting kids and the anger and sadness that comes with living in a world that glorifies having children for women and femmes – loved how she ended that essay on a note of community and friendship.
Unfortunately, though, for the most part I did find these essays a bit laborious to comb through. Sometimes they felt a bit too abstract and not grounded enough in scene. Again, Shapland is smart and I think she’d be a cool person to hang out with, but the writing itself in this essay collection didn’t wow me.
I have mixed feelings about this book because while I agree with the author on a lot of what she talks about and sense that we are very compatible politically, the writing in Thin Skin felt heavy and dry to me. I liked that Jenn Shapland wrote about how environmental degradation affects our health, the pressures of capitalism and work and what it means to live a meaningful life, and the notion of being sensitive and having thin skin. I really resonated with her last essay about not wanting kids and the anger and sadness that comes with living in a world that glorifies having children for women and femmes – loved how she ended that essay on a note of community and friendship.
Unfortunately, though, for the most part I did find these essays a bit laborious to comb through. Sometimes they felt a bit too abstract and not grounded enough in scene. Again, Shapland is smart and I think she’d be a cool person to hang out with, but the writing itself in this essay collection didn’t wow me.
August 15, 2023
Thin Skin is an essay collection about our conception of boundaries on the one hand, and the reality of boundarylessness on the other. That is, it's a book about the permeability of (ostensible) boundaries, how that permeability is both sustenance and poison, strength and weakness. Shapland's five essays are interested in the porousness of the self, the way the self acts and is acted upon by forces that are not "outside" it so much as inextricably tied to, and enmeshed within, it. In "Thin Skin," those forces are toxic--radioactive plants, nuclear weapons testing, chemical dumping--and their impact is devastating and far-reaching. In "The Toomuchness" the forces are capitalistic, driving the inexhaustible desire to consume, to buy, to accumulate. "Strangers on a Train" takes on the threat of "the other" that goes hand in hand with white femininity, "Crystal Vortex" the complex give and take of artistic practice, and "The Meaning of Life" the realities and possibilities of the choice not to have children. And no matter the topic, what I love about Shapland's essays is how they are at once critical and affirming, clear-eyed in their recognition and critique of disparity and injustice, and yet equally insistent that there are alternatives, other ways of living and being. To have "thin skin" is to be vulnerable to an increasingly hostile and precarious world, but it is also to be alive to that world, to its vitality and its richness.
All these essays are carried by Shapland's crystalline prose, which has a distinct frankness that I always find myself drawn to (this especially comes across in the audiobook, which she narrates herself). In a book that is so much about porousness, Shapland's writing is itself also porous, capacious, open to possibilities and explorations, angles old and new. As with every essay collection I love, Thin Skin pools together a wide range of sources: scientific studies, literary works, interviews conducted by Shapland herself, and Shapland's own life and experience. It's a wide-ranging collection, but it still manages to keep that essential core of itself--its thin skin-ness--throughout. I really loved this one, and it's definitely cemented Jenn Shapland as an author whose works I will always look out for.
All these essays are carried by Shapland's crystalline prose, which has a distinct frankness that I always find myself drawn to (this especially comes across in the audiobook, which she narrates herself). In a book that is so much about porousness, Shapland's writing is itself also porous, capacious, open to possibilities and explorations, angles old and new. As with every essay collection I love, Thin Skin pools together a wide range of sources: scientific studies, literary works, interviews conducted by Shapland herself, and Shapland's own life and experience. It's a wide-ranging collection, but it still manages to keep that essential core of itself--its thin skin-ness--throughout. I really loved this one, and it's definitely cemented Jenn Shapland as an author whose works I will always look out for.
June 2, 2023
A brilliant and iconoclastic collection of essays. Sent to me for a blurb also, happily given.
November 14, 2023
Calling this at page 174. She writes prettily while talking shit, so I am giving it two stars,
Her knowledge of history and her applied logic are ridiculously flawed. She cancels her Chase card and in doing so harms her credit at a time she and her partner are trying to get a mortgage. She cancels the card because she learns that 200 years ago the company that is now Chase used slave labor. She is then incensed that a lender finds the fact that she has no consistent source of credit makes her a bad credit risk, and is saddened that her decision to cancel her credit card because of something that happened 200 years ago is not celebrated by the lender. I can't hate her because it seems like it would be dreadful to be her. I am going to just make a slightly enhanced version of my last update my review.
Her knowledge of history and her applied logic are ridiculously flawed. She cancels her Chase card and in doing so harms her credit at a time she and her partner are trying to get a mortgage. She cancels the card because she learns that 200 years ago the company that is now Chase used slave labor. She is then incensed that a lender finds the fact that she has no consistent source of credit makes her a bad credit risk, and is saddened that her decision to cancel her credit card because of something that happened 200 years ago is not celebrated by the lender. I can't hate her because it seems like it would be dreadful to be her. I am going to just make a slightly enhanced version of my last update my review.
The woman can write, but also she is insufferable. I am not buying into the worldview of a White upper-middle class socialist with a shopping addiction who natters on about how chemicals are bad. (Newsflash -- chemicals make up most everything. Some are naturally occurring and some are not. Natural doesn't mean good, so when your partner offers up 100% natural heirloom hemlock with a sprinkling of cyanide for breakfast just say no.)
March 11, 2023
Shapland's debut, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, received a lot of attention when it came out a few years ago and was one I was looking to try after I had had the chance to read more of McCullers' fiction. So I jumped at the chance to try her latest collection of essays (I mean who could resist that gorgeous cover?!).
The blurb describes this collection of essays as "ceaselessly curious", and I found that to be an apt description. The essays felt quite broad in scope and ambitious at the outset - for example if a meaningful life is possible under capitalism - but they were all expertly crafted, weaving the personal with the political, creating a memorable collection to add to the personal essay canon.
Thank you Netgalley and Knopf/Pantheon for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
The blurb describes this collection of essays as "ceaselessly curious", and I found that to be an apt description. The essays felt quite broad in scope and ambitious at the outset - for example if a meaningful life is possible under capitalism - but they were all expertly crafted, weaving the personal with the political, creating a memorable collection to add to the personal essay canon.
Thank you Netgalley and Knopf/Pantheon for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
September 7, 2023
This author has a lot to say about many topics, and begins with the one perhaps most personal to her: the continuing adverse effects of the Los Alamos laboratory on the people, soil, water and legacy of the people of New Mexico. As a resident of Santa Fe, Shapland has built-in motivation to research the storage history of nuclear waste, and the industrial runoff protocols for the whole area.
It's stunningly frightening.
As she herself avers:
𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺.
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘣 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸.
This is a much more engaging book than I anticipated. Via a narrative nonfiction voice, the author intersperses both her personal experiences and her research into a cohesive whole. She broaches a variety of troubling topics:
the incalculable toll of the Manhattan project on residents
the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls
classism, white fear and white knight syndrome, racism, white liberal guilt
instantaneous gratification
plastics never die
the ugly truth about settler colonizers
the myth of retail therapy
the dissolution of the self
the protestant work ethic
Shapland makes many many insights I had not encountered before. For example:
𝘉𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘦𝘳--𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘴--𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺, 𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥.
She points out that in this time of history, we even have to buy our space, a place just to be, to officially exist.
I find these truths excavated by Shapland to be as shocking as they are illuminating. Why didn't we ever look at things like this, from these angles, before? She encapsulates so effectively:
𝘝𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵.
Shapland is absolutely right. In this day and age, value isn't intrinsic; it's whatever value is placed upon something, or even someone.
What value shall we place on our search for meaning and purpose, even if we discover it?
The author continually stretches boundaries and expands concepts. She suggests radical notions like learning not just to live authentically, but also intentionally. And not just rethinking personhood, or our ideas of what constitutes a family, but reimagining community itself: indeed all social structures.
Her biggest question, in my mind, is whether you need permission from society to live your own vision of a fulfilling life.
This whole book is dynamite, and well-worth a read, if just for the "beyond Oppenheimer" style takedown in the beginning of the book.
Color me impressed.
It's stunningly frightening.
As she herself avers:
𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺.
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘣 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸.
This is a much more engaging book than I anticipated. Via a narrative nonfiction voice, the author intersperses both her personal experiences and her research into a cohesive whole. She broaches a variety of troubling topics:
the incalculable toll of the Manhattan project on residents
the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls
classism, white fear and white knight syndrome, racism, white liberal guilt
instantaneous gratification
plastics never die
the ugly truth about settler colonizers
the myth of retail therapy
the dissolution of the self
the protestant work ethic
Shapland makes many many insights I had not encountered before. For example:
𝘉𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘦𝘳--𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘴--𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺, 𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦, 𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘧𝘪𝘦𝘥.
She points out that in this time of history, we even have to buy our space, a place just to be, to officially exist.
I find these truths excavated by Shapland to be as shocking as they are illuminating. Why didn't we ever look at things like this, from these angles, before? She encapsulates so effectively:
𝘝𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵.
Shapland is absolutely right. In this day and age, value isn't intrinsic; it's whatever value is placed upon something, or even someone.
What value shall we place on our search for meaning and purpose, even if we discover it?
The author continually stretches boundaries and expands concepts. She suggests radical notions like learning not just to live authentically, but also intentionally. And not just rethinking personhood, or our ideas of what constitutes a family, but reimagining community itself: indeed all social structures.
Her biggest question, in my mind, is whether you need permission from society to live your own vision of a fulfilling life.
This whole book is dynamite, and well-worth a read, if just for the "beyond Oppenheimer" style takedown in the beginning of the book.
Color me impressed.
March 15, 2024
The last essay in this anthology was limited in its perspective. The level of judgement against mothers and the contempt for motherhood can only be done by a woman who claims to be “for feminism” but pisses upon one of the most feminine things on this Earth.
To label motherhood as a capitalist tactic for production, whatever that means, annihilates all the motherhood actually means and provides. Shapland even describes that she still struggles with the instinct to care. But why can’t she accept that this isn’t it might be natural to her, not just as a mother, but as a person, and is not a social norm enforced upon her? It’s one of the most human characteristics that exists.
Her parents mentioning that a childhood friend of hers had a baby in the same conversation as her telling her parents she won an award is not diminishing her success or imposing heteronormative values upon her. It is conversation, and the fact that Shapland takes this as evidence of society attempting to minimize her queer experience is her victimizing herself (as she has done throughout the entirety of this anthology).
To view the world through a strict political lens is to lack depth in one’s ability to observe and analyze. Sure, things in life may have a political angle, but to claim that motherhood is a political scheme infiltrating society is wrong.
This book was interesting though: I’ve never seen a person victimize themselves for not being a traditional victim. Their struggles are not typical “victim struggles”, which further discredits their experience, and makes them victim.
To label motherhood as a capitalist tactic for production, whatever that means, annihilates all the motherhood actually means and provides. Shapland even describes that she still struggles with the instinct to care. But why can’t she accept that this isn’t it might be natural to her, not just as a mother, but as a person, and is not a social norm enforced upon her? It’s one of the most human characteristics that exists.
Her parents mentioning that a childhood friend of hers had a baby in the same conversation as her telling her parents she won an award is not diminishing her success or imposing heteronormative values upon her. It is conversation, and the fact that Shapland takes this as evidence of society attempting to minimize her queer experience is her victimizing herself (as she has done throughout the entirety of this anthology).
To view the world through a strict political lens is to lack depth in one’s ability to observe and analyze. Sure, things in life may have a political angle, but to claim that motherhood is a political scheme infiltrating society is wrong.
This book was interesting though: I’ve never seen a person victimize themselves for not being a traditional victim. Their struggles are not typical “victim struggles”, which further discredits their experience, and makes them victim.
August 29, 2023
I haven’t read essays like this since college, and now I’m realizing I miss them. Jenn Shapland makes me long to examine the world in that way again, think deeply about my life and how it intersects with others and then do something to create the world as I’d like to see it. Recommend for anyone.
March 3, 2023
I've been sitting with this one for a whole day and I'm still struggling to come up with a decent review, so, here, have a rambling mess and my assurance, for what it is worth, that this collection of essays is far more coherent and intelligent than my review.
This collection made me feel seen, reading it felt like sitting with a friend who just gets it, not that she knows what we need to do to fix it all but she's knows what's up and she can commiserate and she won't think your silly for knowing and spending a lot of time considering the details of your cats' personalities or for the numerous and sometimes contradictory anxieties we all seem to struggle with.
What else does she just get exactly? Well for starter she really gets that quintessential millennial feeling of wanting to be an "old person" now, of wanting to slow down, to tend to our own garden (be it actual or figurative) but also that urge, that itch and urgency of being productive at all times and the contradiction of it all that we can't escape.
She also gets that capitalism is impossible to avoid and impacts every aspect of our lives and relationships no matter how hard we try to be a proverbial island. That the unavoidable influence of capitalism on our lives is lifetimes in the making and that she doesn't need to tiptoe around saying it. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
I received an eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This collection made me feel seen, reading it felt like sitting with a friend who just gets it, not that she knows what we need to do to fix it all but she's knows what's up and she can commiserate and she won't think your silly for knowing and spending a lot of time considering the details of your cats' personalities or for the numerous and sometimes contradictory anxieties we all seem to struggle with.
What else does she just get exactly? Well for starter she really gets that quintessential millennial feeling of wanting to be an "old person" now, of wanting to slow down, to tend to our own garden (be it actual or figurative) but also that urge, that itch and urgency of being productive at all times and the contradiction of it all that we can't escape.
She also gets that capitalism is impossible to avoid and impacts every aspect of our lives and relationships no matter how hard we try to be a proverbial island. That the unavoidable influence of capitalism on our lives is lifetimes in the making and that she doesn't need to tiptoe around saying it. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
I received an eARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 12, 2023
Thin Skin discusses a multitude of subjects with an enormous amount of compassion and empathy that I rarely see in nonfiction. I enjoyed the nuance that the interweaving of facts with personal anecdotes provided and especially appreciated Shapland’s tendency to ask more questions rather than giving concrete answers to the ones that were posed in the essays. Overall, I think that Thin Skin is essential reading for anyone who thinks a lot, worries a lot, and perhaps has a tendency towards scepticism.
August 22, 2024
i fear these read too woke for me to fully enjoy
March 30, 2024
Nope. If you have friends who make you feel bad about not having kids then you have the wrong friends. And if you choose to have children it’s not necessarily because you feel societal pressure as a woman. And lastly - if you think women over 50 live expectation free… well you have another thing coming. These essays were delusional and judgmental. I had to switch to audio because the book felt like a chore and then I had to 2x speed it because listening to her was infuriating.
March 7, 2024
These are really long essays. I read 4 out of 5 and decided to call it a day. Just could not get into a whole thing about witches in the last essay "Meaning of Life." The essays are smart and make excellent, illuminating points about daily existence in a capitalist consumerist society. They are also dark and hopeless, with the result of reading them made me feel truly anxious and unwell. Each time I finished one essay, I almost dreaded starting the next.
For example, from the essay The Toomuchness: "No object, no matter how carefully loved or selected, can make us feel seen or loved or known. We long for time and space and end up filling our coveted free time with cleaning, organizing, discarding. We grow out of life-sized dreams, we discard entire parts of our personalities." And it continues to discuss the perils of consumerism as "unending purgatory" and quotes a scholar who says the separation of our desires and consumption is "tantamount to Hell."
So, it's pretty dramatic and Shapland also throws in tons of stats about how much garbage Americans produce in the process. If you're sort of planet-oriented like I am, this is a stressful essay to read. Plus, minor gripe here, but the many block quotes throughout the book made it extra tedious to get through.
Along the way, I realized that perhaps some types of essays need built-in rest for the reader. Like, even if the book's general message is that Amazon is shite, bunkers are shite, hiking in a nuclear wasteland is shite, self-help is spiritual appropriation shite, Western society is all colonial shite, etc. we can still appreciate the small and simple moments of being human. I found myself yearning for whole pages about what is so great about the water aerobics Shapland does or a description of something she bought on Amazon that she truly loves, or some genuine awe and wonder for the black tourmaline she wears. Shapland reveals how she struggles and fumbles to right every wrong on an individual level, becoming hypervigilant about saving two jars of water or buying secondhand sweaters, but I feel like part of recognizing her white privilege which she regularly puts under a microscope, is also being willing to recognize what she gets out of the modern conveniences of her pretty nice life. Surely something fulfills and satisfies her without self-punishment? Shapland's voice is always panicked, guilty, analyzing, overwhelmed, albeit hyperaware of the injustices of a white, privileged American lifestyle. As a collection, it wanted for some balance towards calm, love, feeling rather than thinking, letting go.
For example, from the essay The Toomuchness: "No object, no matter how carefully loved or selected, can make us feel seen or loved or known. We long for time and space and end up filling our coveted free time with cleaning, organizing, discarding. We grow out of life-sized dreams, we discard entire parts of our personalities." And it continues to discuss the perils of consumerism as "unending purgatory" and quotes a scholar who says the separation of our desires and consumption is "tantamount to Hell."
So, it's pretty dramatic and Shapland also throws in tons of stats about how much garbage Americans produce in the process. If you're sort of planet-oriented like I am, this is a stressful essay to read. Plus, minor gripe here, but the many block quotes throughout the book made it extra tedious to get through.
Along the way, I realized that perhaps some types of essays need built-in rest for the reader. Like, even if the book's general message is that Amazon is shite, bunkers are shite, hiking in a nuclear wasteland is shite, self-help is spiritual appropriation shite, Western society is all colonial shite, etc. we can still appreciate the small and simple moments of being human. I found myself yearning for whole pages about what is so great about the water aerobics Shapland does or a description of something she bought on Amazon that she truly loves, or some genuine awe and wonder for the black tourmaline she wears. Shapland reveals how she struggles and fumbles to right every wrong on an individual level, becoming hypervigilant about saving two jars of water or buying secondhand sweaters, but I feel like part of recognizing her white privilege which she regularly puts under a microscope, is also being willing to recognize what she gets out of the modern conveniences of her pretty nice life. Surely something fulfills and satisfies her without self-punishment? Shapland's voice is always panicked, guilty, analyzing, overwhelmed, albeit hyperaware of the injustices of a white, privileged American lifestyle. As a collection, it wanted for some balance towards calm, love, feeling rather than thinking, letting go.
September 9, 2023
Phenomenal essays!
March 30, 2024
I wish I could give this book ten stars. Though I am tempted to be envious of the amazing feat Shapland accomplished in this collection--an incredibly researched and thoughtful exploration of manmade boundaries and systems--I am so glad this book exists. It gave words to the deep, foreboding existential anxiety I feel in participating in white supremacy, in capitalism, in the destruction of the earth. Every essay was timely and urgent, but I especially identified with "The Meaning of Life" wherein Shapland dissects the institution of motherhood and its relationship to capital. Though scathing, there is something deeply empathetic, gentle, dare I say hopeful? about this message. I can't wait to read it again.
November 30, 2023
BEST READ OF 2023. Shapland is incredibly skilled at weaving together the complex and undeniably interconnected. This book made me feel stressed and sad and understood, and helped me shift how I have been grappling with certain problems I struggle to reconcile in my life. There is so much to say about these essays, witches and irradiation and consumption, our responsibilities to life—an absolute accomplishment. Quiet, slow, and undeniable.
April 6, 2024
Thin skin, thin essays. I wanted to like this but found it simultaneously trite and predictable. The sentences read like they were run through a left-wing AI paragraph generator, and the essay “The Meaning of Life” was particularly infuriating and poorly constructed. Still, Jenn Shapland sounds like she is happy with the life she has created, and for that, I am happy for her. I bet she has a cool wardrobe.
March 2, 2024
I thought about this quote from Eula Biss's No Man's Land throughout the audiobook: "One of the paradoxes of our time is... a collective belief that maintaining the right amount of fear and suspicion will earn one safety. Fear is promoted by the government as a kind of policy. Fear is accepted... as a kind of intelligence. And inspiring fear in others is often seen as neighborly and kindly, instead of being regarded as what my cousin recognized it for - a violence," which was ironic because she later shared this quote somewhere in the section on toxicity. Reading the first third of this book was simply dreadful, as Shapland details the effects of atomic waste on New Mexico, both its inhabitants and its landscape. It was fucking depressing to read. Yes, our government and its actions toward the environment suck. Yes, Democrats aren't just as bad but they are nearly as bad as Republicans in this aspect. Yes, there are chemicals everywhere and there is no escape. There is NO ESCAPE. So what is Shapland's purpose? I'm starting to feel like any fear, responsibility, doom-spiraling that I am experiencing related to climate change is wasted emotional energy. What can I do, actually? Is it my responsibility to be thinking about this, actually? Beyond what I can do as a teacher to explore this with students... but even then! As an ENGLISH TEACHER, is that my job, actually? We all have a responsibility to maintain conscientiousness, yada yada yada, but am I the one who needs to be more conscientious? Really, me, the reader of this book?
The next section was on consumerism, specifically related to clothes, and it just made me want to buy more clothes. However, it was my favorite section, because Shapland also explores the nature of desire, and how historically humans understood desire as something that naturally could never be fulfilled. I liked thinking about this, how wanting and not having can be emotionally sustaining in itself.
"Crystal Vortex" might have been my favorite individual essay because it reminded me of reading Women Who Run with the Wolves. It made me feel inspired to go to a coffeeshop and write, and that writing for the sake of writing, even if no one else ever reads it, is worthwhile. In some ways, it gave me a rose-colored view of an artist's life, rather than a teacher's (though she does wax ad infinitum on the inherent meaninglessness of work - not relatable.)
I would give this more like 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding it up to three because I was able to finish the book, and it clearly gave me stuff to think and talk about.
The next section was on consumerism, specifically related to clothes, and it just made me want to buy more clothes. However, it was my favorite section, because Shapland also explores the nature of desire, and how historically humans understood desire as something that naturally could never be fulfilled. I liked thinking about this, how wanting and not having can be emotionally sustaining in itself.
"Crystal Vortex" might have been my favorite individual essay because it reminded me of reading Women Who Run with the Wolves. It made me feel inspired to go to a coffeeshop and write, and that writing for the sake of writing, even if no one else ever reads it, is worthwhile. In some ways, it gave me a rose-colored view of an artist's life, rather than a teacher's (though she does wax ad infinitum on the inherent meaninglessness of work - not relatable.)
I would give this more like 2.5 stars, but I'm rounding it up to three because I was able to finish the book, and it clearly gave me stuff to think and talk about.
February 23, 2025
"To be sensitive is sometimes to err, to overreact, to be too finally calibrated or tightly strung, to be overly cautious. But to be thick–skinned is to be what? Obtuse. To see the hurt and gloss over it, dismiss it, laugh it off. ... Why should I toughen when I know we are all tender, we are all sponges?"
A super smart and satisfying essay collection that brought to mind some other favorites by Eula Biss and Jenny Odell. I was really struck by the way Shapland structures these. Like the cover suggests, she's adapt at layering anecdotes from her personal life, qualitative content that she's researched, and more philosophical insights and observations. Each essay winds up or down a spiral, some expanding in scope and others growing more intimate, but always with a clear tether to the initial and central ideas. Her analysis is nuanced, sophisticated, and still ultimately very accessible and engaging. I didn't have many "mind-blown revelation" moments, but instead the continued experience of seeing all of these connective threads glinting under new light.
The first three essays were the strongest to me, reckoning with environmental destruction, white supremacist patriarchy, and capitalism respectively. Shapland cleverly points out that there's a driving dream associated with each (invulnerability and individualism; safety and autonomy; satisfaction and satiation) which simultaneously energizes and sabotages our engagement. It's also worth noting that while Shapland obviously isn't the first to write on these looming topics, her careful construction meant that each exploration felt fresh and singular. The fourth essay, lacking some of that crystalized focus of the previous, was the weakest for me and the final one about being intentionally child-free was also less resonant (even as a child-free adult). One thing I noticed, especially in her conclusions, was a subtle bend towards a more nihilistic, shrugging resignation. This was a bit "Cassandra-ian" at times and while I don't require hearty optimism from my social analysis, these notes did slightly sour some of what came before them.
A super smart and satisfying essay collection that brought to mind some other favorites by Eula Biss and Jenny Odell. I was really struck by the way Shapland structures these. Like the cover suggests, she's adapt at layering anecdotes from her personal life, qualitative content that she's researched, and more philosophical insights and observations. Each essay winds up or down a spiral, some expanding in scope and others growing more intimate, but always with a clear tether to the initial and central ideas. Her analysis is nuanced, sophisticated, and still ultimately very accessible and engaging. I didn't have many "mind-blown revelation" moments, but instead the continued experience of seeing all of these connective threads glinting under new light.
The first three essays were the strongest to me, reckoning with environmental destruction, white supremacist patriarchy, and capitalism respectively. Shapland cleverly points out that there's a driving dream associated with each (invulnerability and individualism; safety and autonomy; satisfaction and satiation) which simultaneously energizes and sabotages our engagement. It's also worth noting that while Shapland obviously isn't the first to write on these looming topics, her careful construction meant that each exploration felt fresh and singular. The fourth essay, lacking some of that crystalized focus of the previous, was the weakest for me and the final one about being intentionally child-free was also less resonant (even as a child-free adult). One thing I noticed, especially in her conclusions, was a subtle bend towards a more nihilistic, shrugging resignation. This was a bit "Cassandra-ian" at times and while I don't require hearty optimism from my social analysis, these notes did slightly sour some of what came before them.
October 20, 2023
Thin Skin: Essays by Jenn Shapland is an excellent collection about what it means to be sensitive, to be "thin-skinned," to open your eyes to the reality of just how permeable everything truly is. From the chemicals that seep into our bodies due to negligence to the false boundaries of white suburbia ad its "safety" to the struggle of trying to get work done, especially creative work, when the world is barraging us on all sides, Shapland digs into the places where boundaries dissolve and ask what is wrong with her that she has to expose uncomfortable truths, call things out, that she can't shake off things, has to spread it, has to deal with the pain of knowing.
(To my absolute delight, the epigraph of the novel describes the "dissolving boundaries" from Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels.)
Shapland's essays turn in on themselves, shift and curve. She takes us on what seems like a digression but that turns into the same question, the same fear. The strongest essay by far is "Thin Skin" itself and its argument that being "tough" is being obtuse, that we have to stop pretending, that we have to look the truth in the eye despite the fears it will cause. "Strangers on a Train" and "The Toomuchness" both unpack false senses of safety, of impregnability, of what we should be sacred of, of what we can survive.
The final two essays were slightly less strong. "Crystal Vortex" was a good but scattered discussion of being creative in a world so rooted in productivity and final products. "The Meaning of Life" unpacks how women are told the true purpose of life is motherhood, and how little she wants to have children. I thought this was the shallowest essay, not because it didn't get there in the end, but because I think much of the analysis was things I've heard before disguised as new analysis (ex. "It doesn't get a lot of airtime, but the witch hunts were one of the foundational events in the construction of the society in which we live"—it gets a lot of airtime, particularly on feminist signs and t-shirts).
Overall, I recommend this beautiful essay collection. Even the essays that weren't as good were still thought-provoking, interesting, and compelling. I'll return to these essays again.
Content warnings for death/grief, institutionalized racism/classism, rape culture, suicide.
(To my absolute delight, the epigraph of the novel describes the "dissolving boundaries" from Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels.)
Shapland's essays turn in on themselves, shift and curve. She takes us on what seems like a digression but that turns into the same question, the same fear. The strongest essay by far is "Thin Skin" itself and its argument that being "tough" is being obtuse, that we have to stop pretending, that we have to look the truth in the eye despite the fears it will cause. "Strangers on a Train" and "The Toomuchness" both unpack false senses of safety, of impregnability, of what we should be sacred of, of what we can survive.
The final two essays were slightly less strong. "Crystal Vortex" was a good but scattered discussion of being creative in a world so rooted in productivity and final products. "The Meaning of Life" unpacks how women are told the true purpose of life is motherhood, and how little she wants to have children. I thought this was the shallowest essay, not because it didn't get there in the end, but because I think much of the analysis was things I've heard before disguised as new analysis (ex. "It doesn't get a lot of airtime, but the witch hunts were one of the foundational events in the construction of the society in which we live"—it gets a lot of airtime, particularly on feminist signs and t-shirts).
Overall, I recommend this beautiful essay collection. Even the essays that weren't as good were still thought-provoking, interesting, and compelling. I'll return to these essays again.
Content warnings for death/grief, institutionalized racism/classism, rape culture, suicide.
March 8, 2025
I love reading Jenn Shapland because she makes me recognizable to myself and she offers up possibilities I had not contemplated. She always teaches me something about me, something I did not know, and something I didn't need I needed to know at this point in time. Her writing is, to me, thought-provoking and inspiring, and always leaves me wanting more. I could have read essay after essay after essay, just sitting here learning, and hearing and feeling heard at the same time. Her essay on a childless life particularly stuck home, in ways I need to digest quietly by myself. Thank you Jenn.
August 16, 2023
4.5 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and Pantheon for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This beautiful collection of essays starts with Thin Skin, referring to the thin barrier of her skin to the toxic environment in New Mexico due to nuclear testing but also how this thin barrier is to many things in the world. The author does a skillful job of weaving the idea of capitalism and how it seeps in the land and homes, our own skin, and the way we think and live based on consumerism and objectification of everything in life. Even though we'd like to think that we live our lives in our own very personal worlds, these choices have rippling effects out that effect the entire globe. These essays are based on personal experiences as well as much research and interviews. I especially enjoyed the last essays talking about the choices we should be able to make about our own (women's) bodies, abortion, queerness, Rachel Carson and owning property/land. Highly recommended.
September 27, 2023
I would read this 100 times over. Brilliant, gripping, convicting, and transparent. I feel like Jenn Shapland reached into my brain and articulated so many of my core beliefs. I love this endlessly.
January 5, 2025
3.5 stars, rounded up.
I don't quite know what to make of this collection!! I read and really enjoyed Shapland's debut, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, and I do like her writing: she leans towards a more academic style, but in a way that still feels accessible and personally-rooted. The topics of these essays are also topics of interest and critical thought for me, but I think I struggled in that some of the perspectives she provided here seemed...uninformed? Overly antagonistic? Misplaced for her positionality? Some examples of this include:
- Her first essay, "Thin Skin" which explored environmental toxicity, including nuclear research and waste in New Mexico. Despite mentioning many times the ways in which issues related to environmental toxicity most directly impact poor communities of color (a demographic which Shapland is not), she continued to center herself in a way that just didn't quite sit right with me
- The last essay, "The Meaning of Life", explores the relationship between motherhood and capitalism , but in a way that really vilified women who want to have children in the present day. While I completely agree that domestic and childrearing labor is extremely undervalued and exhausting, women's bodies and autonomy are very much under attack, and the choice to remain childfree should always be a valid choice, these realities do not mean that the desire to have children and care for them (and the act of doing so) is "exclusively cultural" or not massively transformative (most often for the better!) in millions of peoples lives...
I enjoyed the middle two essays, "The Toomuchness" (consumerism and our inability to escape it, even when we want to) and "Crystal Vortex" (our search for meaning through things like the Enneagram, astrology, etc), quite a lot, but overall I sadly think the poor hot takes in this collection made it overall fairly mid.
I don't quite know what to make of this collection!! I read and really enjoyed Shapland's debut, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, and I do like her writing: she leans towards a more academic style, but in a way that still feels accessible and personally-rooted. The topics of these essays are also topics of interest and critical thought for me, but I think I struggled in that some of the perspectives she provided here seemed...uninformed? Overly antagonistic? Misplaced for her positionality? Some examples of this include:
- Her first essay, "Thin Skin" which explored environmental toxicity, including nuclear research and waste in New Mexico. Despite mentioning many times the ways in which issues related to environmental toxicity most directly impact poor communities of color (a demographic which Shapland is not), she continued to center herself in a way that just didn't quite sit right with me
- The last essay, "The Meaning of Life", explores the relationship between motherhood and capitalism , but in a way that really vilified women who want to have children in the present day. While I completely agree that domestic and childrearing labor is extremely undervalued and exhausting, women's bodies and autonomy are very much under attack, and the choice to remain childfree should always be a valid choice, these realities do not mean that the desire to have children and care for them (and the act of doing so) is "exclusively cultural" or not massively transformative (most often for the better!) in millions of peoples lives...
I enjoyed the middle two essays, "The Toomuchness" (consumerism and our inability to escape it, even when we want to) and "Crystal Vortex" (our search for meaning through things like the Enneagram, astrology, etc), quite a lot, but overall I sadly think the poor hot takes in this collection made it overall fairly mid.
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November 12, 2023hmmm. I have fond memories of My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, but, looking back, I noted "I appreciated this book more than I enjoyed it."
Similarly, I am so interested in the topics explored in Thin Skin, so I'm not exactly sure why it didn't resonate with me more. I enjoyed the interview with the author on The Maris Review podcast, but I could tell I didn't appreciate some of the multiple voices brought into the essays. I'm fascinated and perhaps repulsed by the portrayal of Lake Forest, which is done with awareness but still seems to be missing something to me (and is not the point of the book!). I'll continue to explore what the author publishes.
Similarly, I am so interested in the topics explored in Thin Skin, so I'm not exactly sure why it didn't resonate with me more. I enjoyed the interview with the author on The Maris Review podcast, but I could tell I didn't appreciate some of the multiple voices brought into the essays. I'm fascinated and perhaps repulsed by the portrayal of Lake Forest, which is done with awareness but still seems to be missing something to me (and is not the point of the book!). I'll continue to explore what the author publishes.
July 1, 2023
I read this book as a pre-release e-book obtained through NetGalley, provided by the publisher.
The entire book is written about our “thin skin” – that which separates “us” from the “not us” in the universe around us. Each of the chapters, each with several sections, focuses on one thing. It was radioactive contamination, coupled with chemical contamination leading to cancers and other “syndromes” – which can be deadly and difficult to diagnose and mainly untreated in the first chapter. The next chapter involves the “others” who we are carefully taught to fear. From the fear of nonwhites in suburbs, to the absurd theories of Qanon, and fear of the witches – in times past and in developing countries. Indeed, the purpose of the news, and what sells news, is its ability to create fear. The next chapter is about each of our feelings of having “too much”, and a desire to purge – whether it’s calories, the latest detox protocol, our collecting things to recycle – even when there are no recyclers taking the substance, or whether such materials are sent to landfills. There is a desire for the apocalypse – whether it’s from the religious or the whole prepper-living-in-bunkers mentality, and living a minimalist lifestyle. All of this is another iteration of being “forgiven” for our existence or our overconsumption – much like the Catholic selling of Indulgences in centuries past. We live in dread – of a future which we cannot define.
Another chapter is on “The Meaning of Life”, and talks about the expectations of a woman’s life – to be a wife and mother, and to get some “forgiveness” when she’s pregnant – with permission to have and be MORE in some ways. Is having children the only way to have meaning in one’s life? Does that mean that those without children are less human, less valuable? Is the need for every womb to produce children merely a need for more workers, such as the end of feudalism in the late middle ages, giving rise to the witch crazes toward women who actually took on these jobs, forgoing marriage and children, partly because there was a shortage of men – and to produce more workers and soldiers for your nation, with the fear that birth rates are decling?
Is producing children a weird hobby or something akin to a ponzi scheme whereby the person with a womb has a meaningless life, but those children will have meaning – even though they will be perceived as having meaningless lives without children? What’s the end goal? The miracle of life is in a baby bird drinking water or a tulip unfolding too. There is the issue of climate change, and how big of a carbon footprint it is to have one more child.
She also brings up that being partnerless – especially not having a partner of the opposite sex has. Importantly, it is important to ask ourselves periodically, “What is my family?”
The entire book is written about our “thin skin” – that which separates “us” from the “not us” in the universe around us. Each of the chapters, each with several sections, focuses on one thing. It was radioactive contamination, coupled with chemical contamination leading to cancers and other “syndromes” – which can be deadly and difficult to diagnose and mainly untreated in the first chapter. The next chapter involves the “others” who we are carefully taught to fear. From the fear of nonwhites in suburbs, to the absurd theories of Qanon, and fear of the witches – in times past and in developing countries. Indeed, the purpose of the news, and what sells news, is its ability to create fear. The next chapter is about each of our feelings of having “too much”, and a desire to purge – whether it’s calories, the latest detox protocol, our collecting things to recycle – even when there are no recyclers taking the substance, or whether such materials are sent to landfills. There is a desire for the apocalypse – whether it’s from the religious or the whole prepper-living-in-bunkers mentality, and living a minimalist lifestyle. All of this is another iteration of being “forgiven” for our existence or our overconsumption – much like the Catholic selling of Indulgences in centuries past. We live in dread – of a future which we cannot define.
Another chapter is on “The Meaning of Life”, and talks about the expectations of a woman’s life – to be a wife and mother, and to get some “forgiveness” when she’s pregnant – with permission to have and be MORE in some ways. Is having children the only way to have meaning in one’s life? Does that mean that those without children are less human, less valuable? Is the need for every womb to produce children merely a need for more workers, such as the end of feudalism in the late middle ages, giving rise to the witch crazes toward women who actually took on these jobs, forgoing marriage and children, partly because there was a shortage of men – and to produce more workers and soldiers for your nation, with the fear that birth rates are decling?
Is producing children a weird hobby or something akin to a ponzi scheme whereby the person with a womb has a meaningless life, but those children will have meaning – even though they will be perceived as having meaningless lives without children? What’s the end goal? The miracle of life is in a baby bird drinking water or a tulip unfolding too. There is the issue of climate change, and how big of a carbon footprint it is to have one more child.
She also brings up that being partnerless – especially not having a partner of the opposite sex has. Importantly, it is important to ask ourselves periodically, “What is my family?”
October 7, 2023
I very much enjoyed Shapland's first nonfiction book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers. And these essays are highly intelligent, with a variety of ideas sharply considered. Using research, science, history, and personal histories, including the author's, they delve into the links between human fragility and the modern world, its toxic environments, the vulnerabilities of marginalized communities, gender considerations, consumerism, and their effects, physical and psychological and more, on the human body. However, and likely it was me, sometimes I was compelled, sometimes I found myself exhausted by it all.
Thanks to Pantheon and Netgalley for the ARC.
Thanks to Pantheon and Netgalley for the ARC.
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