Ink of Blood

(I received a free copy of this book from Curiosity Quills in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I was a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Young adult books can sometimes be a bit hit and miss with me, but this one definitely succeeded in holding my attention.

Cipher was a character I found really easy to identify with. I’m quite happy to read books written in the first person, but most of the time, the first-person character changes. I was… really glad that didn’t happen here.

The storyline of this book was really intriguing and was enough to keep me reading throughout. It was really good to read a book about clones – they’re not something that feature too much and although Cipher was a unique character, it wasn’t in a way that made her an irritating heroine.

I have mixed feelings about the love triangle here. As a rule, I have gone off love triangles. However, this was one time I felt it had been done in a particularly good way. I liked both of the males and even by the end, I wasn’t sure who I was rooting for Cipher to end up with.

I do think that periods of time were skipped over a bit too much. There were some things that I would have liked to see develop – like the relationships between the characters.

I didn’t have a particular favourite character, except perhaps for Oona. The main characters came across as real, realistic people, with strengths and weaknesses that made sense. The first scene was enough to drag me into the book and as the events progressed, I kept reading. I could experience how Cipher felt along with her.

The writing was very good and I could picture a lot of the events happening in my mind. The ending wasn’t exactly satisfying, so I’m hoping there will be at least a sequel to this – I think there’s so much more of the story that could be explored.

I would definitely be interested in reading more books by this author in the future. If you’re looking for a young adult book that doesn’t have vampires, demons, angels or witches in it, this is more realistic science fiction.