Ink Exchange by Melissa del Mar
Aug. 28th, 2008 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyInk Exchange is the sequel to Wicked Lovely, but with a new main character, Leslie, who was a minor character in WL.
Leslie is struggling to escape. Her brother is a lowlife druggie, and her father is too far gone to care what happens. She can't tell her friends how bad things are at home. She saves up all of her money to get a tattoo, a symbol of regaining power over her own body and life. But what do the tattoo artist's mysterious warnings mean? And could her friends be hiding secrets, too?
"Images cluttered the page -- intricate Celtic patterns, eyes peering from behind thorny vines, grotesque bodies with wicked smiles, animals too unreal to look at for long, symbols her eyes darted away from as soon as she glanced at them. They were stunning and tempting and repulsive, but for one image that set her nerves on edge: inky-black eyes gazed up from within black-and-grey knotwork surrounded by wings like coalescing shadows, and in the middle was a chaos star. Eight arrows pointed away from the center; four of these were thicker, like the lines of a spiked cross.
Mine..That one's mine." (p 22-23)
I really wanted to read this book, since I enjoyed Wicked Lovely so much. I found it a bit of a let-down. It took me more than a hundred pages to get into it. After that, it picked up, but unlike Aislinn, Leslie didn't have much agency. Two and a half stars. Recommended primarily for fans of the series.
Leslie is struggling to escape. Her brother is a lowlife druggie, and her father is too far gone to care what happens. She can't tell her friends how bad things are at home. She saves up all of her money to get a tattoo, a symbol of regaining power over her own body and life. But what do the tattoo artist's mysterious warnings mean? And could her friends be hiding secrets, too?
"Images cluttered the page -- intricate Celtic patterns, eyes peering from behind thorny vines, grotesque bodies with wicked smiles, animals too unreal to look at for long, symbols her eyes darted away from as soon as she glanced at them. They were stunning and tempting and repulsive, but for one image that set her nerves on edge: inky-black eyes gazed up from within black-and-grey knotwork surrounded by wings like coalescing shadows, and in the middle was a chaos star. Eight arrows pointed away from the center; four of these were thicker, like the lines of a spiked cross.
Mine..That one's mine." (p 22-23)
I really wanted to read this book, since I enjoyed Wicked Lovely so much. I found it a bit of a let-down. It took me more than a hundred pages to get into it. After that, it picked up, but unlike Aislinn, Leslie didn't have much agency. Two and a half stars. Recommended primarily for fans of the series.