Lisa Unger has it in her to write a really great book, and I have read several. But UNDER MY SKIN isn’t one of them. It’s not bad, though. So, although I didn’t enjoy it, you may.

UNDER MY SKIN irritated me right away because its main character’s name is Poppy, which I think is a silly name but which is not a good reason to dislike a book. And it didn’t make me dislike it. It’s just a warning that my irritation may have contributed to my estimation of it.

Poppy’s husband, Jack, was murdered. Other reviews will tell you that UNDER MY SKIN is about her search for the murderer. Wrong. Part 1 of the book, that is, approximately the first half of it, is constant repetition of her love for and memories about Jack and her drug–induced dreams/memories. Unger also manages to tell you several times that Poppy dislikes her mother and loves her lifelong friend Layla.

Because of all the repetition in Part 1, I could easily skip paragraphs here and there. I got it already. Part 1 could have and should have been half as long.

Part 2 is where Poppy searches for her husband‘s murderer, but this part was mostly silly. I often felt like I was reading a romance novel. And it was so, so predictable.

UNDER MY SKIN could be called romantic suspense. That’s a genre many readers like. But not me.