Ink (Skin Books, book 1)
By Alice Broadway
Blurb:
Every action, every deed, every significant moment is tattooed on your skin for ever. When Leora's father dies, she is determined to see her father remembered forever. She knows he deserves to have all his tattoos removed and made into a Skin Book to stand as a record of his good life. But when she discovers that his ink has been edited and his book is incomplete, she wonders whether she ever knew him at all.
Sammie is a big fan of this series and recommended I read it and I’m glad I did. Sammie really likes books to be fast paced, I’m not bothered if a book is slow as long as it is worth the anticipation. This book was definitely a more fast paced book than my more recent reads, which was a nice uplifting change. Especially since I was reading this book as part of The Reading Rush. Which involved me reading as many books as I could in a week. I managed 2 of the 3 Skin Books. So I was quite happy with that and received 5 badges. It’s the quickest I’ve ever read any books.
The book started with the main character Leora explaining how she got her name by her parents. This was a good insight into the whole marks situation of the book whilst also not making it confusing. The book was really good at explaining the setting which made things really easy to understand. As this book is about a community that has split into segregated sections of the blanks and the marked. Leora is a member of the marked society.
Leora father had recently passed away so in the book when someone dies their marks; which are basically tattoos; get turned into a book for the family to enjoy but Leora’s fathers book goes missing which causes a whole bunch of secrets to come out. Even though it could be said that the book is fast paced it does take a while for the drama to occur as it’s building it up but it still feels fast because you’re learning so much about the communities and Leora herself and watching her life change from a student to a worker.
Ink is the first book Alice Broadway has published but you can’t tell as it is really good and well written. It was a really easy to read book and I liked how descriptive it was. It was basically just like every other writing style I like, such as Cassandra Clare, it had that vibe.
I really appreciate her decision to make the chapters small, it makes it easier to read more as you aren’t put off by the size of the next one. Although the 2 page chapters maybe were a bit too short. It basically changed chapter per scene which is the way I think all books should be like, but aren’t commonly. However, I’m a bit disappointed as the cover has faded from my sweaty hands during the heat wave that hit the UK whilst I was reading.
The books are one of the most prettiest I have on my bookcase. All 3 are beautifully designed and in lovely colours. The inside of the books match the covers, as they have pretty chapter heads and butterflies to split the scene.
Leora as a character was a very relatable teenage girl and the book is in her perspective so we get all her thoughts. Leora would talk sometimes about how she looked and how she didn’t like how she looked. She would go on about how amazing Verity her best friend is whilst putting herself down. The low self-esteem she shows is just typical teenage thoughts, which helped build the character in my opinion.
Since the community in this book are all about reserving stories it was good having a few chapters of the historic stories. They were usually at the time that related to the main story too, a mirror image as time repeats itself. I appreciate history within a book, it just builds the world up.
There would also be very little snippets of what Leora is dreaming about. They weren’t big or really necessary to the plot but they were interesting and just added that little bit more. It was more about showing the emotion of Leora, by using metaphors for her distress and worries.
Like Sammie, I would recommend reading this series. I reward this book 5 stars and below in the spoilers section I explain why.
*SPOILERS*
Now it’s time to get into the juicy bits of the book. In the early chapters, Leora witnissess a public marking of a man with a crow symbol. Mayor Longsight, says it is to mark the man as forgotten which means his book will be burned rather than given to his family when he dies. From seeing this, Leora has a flashback to when she saw that mark on her father's head. This makes her worried but it isn’t till near the end of the book till we find out why he was marked.
One thing I really liked about Leora’s character is that she would confront her mother about any new information she discovers. Normally characters in books will just go hunting for information themselves rather than going the faster route of asking someone. Sadly, to begin with her mother didn’t cooperate but I was just glad to see some child to parent confrontation.
Something I disliked about the book would be how it could be a bit repetitive scenes wise. Leora would find something out, go confront her mother. Then she gets mad and goes to Verity’s house then in the end decides to not tell her and returns home. During these scenes, not much was achieved with the new information and it happened a few times.
I think what really took this book from a 4 star rating to a 5, was the ending. It was a really good ending and a great set up for the next. It had loads of drama and unexpected twists. A twist I really enjoyed was during the hearing to decide if Leora’s father’s book would be burned or not, she decided to burn it. Despite fighting so hard to keep it, as she felt betrayed by him. She found out during the hearing that she was half blank and she sees the blanks as these horrible people so she doesn’t understand his reasoning.
Rating: 5 runes out of 5
