I must admit that passages of this book were very hard to read because I found the subject matter to be repellent. However, I think the root of my feelings stems from the fact that Scott describes an uncomfortable situation so beautifully, that you almost feel guilty enjoying the prose that describes such horrible acts.

Brian and Neil are two young men forever linked by their past experiences, but could not have interpreted the experience any more differently. Brian searches for answers in the hull of a spaceship, convinced he was abducted by aliens, while Neil moves from trick to trick, leading a risky lifestyle and coming to some difficult realizations along the way.

I thought this was a wonderful story of two people looking for answers and closure. It is beautifully written and takes us to a place that is uncomfortable to look at, but gives us two different perspectives to view it from. I highly recommend this book.

Scott Heim is one of the best authors I've read in a long time. He is up on a pedestal with the likes of Truman Capote. His debut novel "Mysterious Skin" is about Neil and Brian, two gay boys, who through trials and tribulations, discover who they are, and what they are. There just aren't any adequate words in the human language to describe Scott Heim's beautiful, haunting prose. He is incredibly poetic, and the lives of Brian and Neil are so exqiusitely painful and achingly beautiful that it should drive you to tears, and if it doesn't, then check your chest cavity for a heart. How anyone could possibly give this book a bad review is simply beyond me. Just be forewarned: Do not read this book on a gray rainy day, while feeling dismal, or while using heavy machinery. It is sure to depress, but make angry, and also begs for attention.

~Steven Harvey

When I went to High School in Kansas I soon learned that an author had gone to the same one as me. After a few years, I found Scott Heim's first book "Mysterious Skin". I read it and it was like a punch in the chest. The story takes place in my community and amongst the people I thought I knew. I also share the same sexuality as the main character. I found the book to be a sweet and painful release to the suffering I've gone through in this state of Kansas. The hurt and horror of this book was all to familiar. Heim's words and language, his graphic paintings of reality, and his twists of beauty and perversity pour out onto the pages of this unworldy novel. Don't expect to read it and pass it off. His books will live in your memory for a long time. To take his work to heart is to look at this world with wider eyes. Definately, this book is a must. Even though the book hurts so much to read and you will want to put it away, you can't. And in the end, through the horror, you will see the beauty of his work.

Scott Heim's writing is at times beautifully visual and graphic, and yet in this novel, the story is so preposterous his art is obscured. The characters all engage in completely ridiculous behavior that is meant to be read with grim shock and guilty, ghoulish pleasure, but which will make more discerning readers roll their eyes. This book also personifies the laughable trend in gay fiction: if there is death and depravity and self-loathing, then it's lit. If there is not, then it's not. The finale of this book is especially outrageous; you can feel Heim reaching for the most grotesque things possible in order to top himself. One part of the book I did love was the female character's past as one of those dirty little girls in class who doesn't even realize why she behaves the way she does. More character study on that line would have improved this book immeasurably.

It's not until halfway through the book that one discovers the yellow stuff in the test tube on the cover is urine, and if the notion of that disgusts or outrages you, this book probably isn't for you. It's about a trio of misfits in Lawrence, KS: a teenage gay boy living in a halfway house for kids, a 30ish woman whose gay best friend (Marshall) dies from AIDS, and Marshall's 60ish widowed mother. Each has "issues" and is to various degrees an outcast in the heartland, and over a few months, the book weaves each person's problems with their persecution, climaxing in an unsatisfying showdown with their tormentors/issues. There's a subplot about two college girls who go missing and turn up dead, and excerpts from the boy's revenge-fantasy zombie novel-in-progress, both of which only serve to distract. Heim loads plenty of inconsequential detail in a attempt to give his writing a more haunting or literary tone than it can naturally achieve--he fails. There are a few nice elements here and there, but the book reads like an unfinished, unedited mess.

There was a lot going on in this book... sometimes too much for me to keep up with. And some of the violence seemed gratuitous. However: the human relationships hold the book together. As with Mysterious Skin -- this is a story of very real characters on a very fantastic journey. The novel is really a backdrop for a fearless examination of human pain, desire, love, self-sabotage, coping, strength. Even though "the" main character happens to be male, I particularly appreciate that Heim's female characters are REAL people -- not just hollow sidekicks. Say what you want about Heim's [] depiction of gay life... All I know is that there are not many writers (male, female, gay or straight) who manage to transcend the sexist prejudice of our culture and allow female characters to be as human as their male characters. This one does. Bravo, Heim!

Is Mr. Heim a better novelist than poet? How could he not be? These poems are simpering and should be avoided. For your gay poetry needs I suggest you seek out the small press.

this book is great! i don't usually read poetry but i like scott heim's fiction, so.... this is nearly as good. i read somewhere that he doesn't write poetry anymore and isn't so happy with this book, but really it's very good and the poems are sexy, sad, and full of great images.