Pages: 336
Released: 01/09/2009
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Bought this book
THE BLURB:
Unbeknownst to mortals, a power struggle is unfolding in a world of shadows and danger. After centuries of stability, the balance among the Faery Court has altered, and Irial, ruler of the Dark Court, is battling to hold his rebellious and newly vulnerable fey together. If he fails, bloodshed and brutality will follow.
Seventeen-year-old Leslie knows nothing of faeries or their intrigues. When she is attracted to an eerily beautiful tattoo of eyes and wings, all she knows is that she has to have it, convinced it is a tangible symbol of changes she desperately craves for her own life.
The tattoo does bring changes—not the kind Leslie has dreamed of, but sinister, compelling changes that are more than symbolic. Those changes will bind Leslie and Irial together, drawing Leslie deeper and deeper into the faery world, unable to resist its allures, and helpless to withstand its perils. . . .
THE REVIEW:
I was a bit hesitant about reading "Ink Exchange" because I had heard that the book was more about the dark court and therefore contained alot of dark themes and violence. This may have been so, but I feel that Marr has a way of writing where the reader can observe the details of a gruesome situation without feeling the depth of it. "Ink Exchange" definitely made for an interesting read and was very unique.
Personally, I am not a big fan of tattoos. When I had first heard about this book I thought "But why would a sexual abuse victim want something as painful as a tattoo" It just didn't make sense to me. Melissa Marr has a way of making things easier to comprehend though. The main character was simply trying to prove that this was her skin and that she could choose what she did to it. Does tattooing your skin really prove that it's yours though? Aren't you putting someone else's art on your skin? So these were all messages and ideas that were hiding under the surface of the story.
I felt that Ink Exchange was more like a companion novel than a follow up in a series. It seemed more detatched from the main characters of the last story. I think I liked this though, because it might prevent boredom developing from reading about the same characters. In this book the main character was a bit jealous of Aislinn and seemed a bit catty towards her at times. This was interesting because in "Wicked Lovely" we see the world through Aislinn's eyes and are inclined to like her. It's great that the reader is given the opportunity to view things from different sides.
I felt that the writing quality wasn't as good this time around as I spotted a few grammatical errors. Some of these could have been excused due to them being part of a speech. The descriptive side of things was an exception though and Marr's writing definitely put the me into a time and place without me having to tell myself to imagine it.
I was a little disappointed that this one didn't have little Faery quotes and facts at the start of each chapter. I guess this was because the first book was about Aislinn who saw faeries, Whilst Leslie didn't know about them until half way through "Ink Exchange". Melissa Marr did make up for it in the end by including an interesting little fact file about "How to deal with Faeries" and the character names and meanings.
Overall I really enjoyed "Ink Exchange" and give it 4/5 stars. I think regardless of whether a person is talking or not grammatical errors can really bring a book down because they dictate one of a books main purposes and that is to educate people and help them improve on their writing. This could possibly more of an editing problem rather than a problem with the author. The story line was still really great and had plenty of depth. I really appreciate books of the fantasy genre that include real-life issues in them.
'Ink Exchange' is the second book in the Wicked Lovely Series
click here for my review of the first book 'Wicked Lovely'
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Natalie
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