Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’m not going to say again how much I hate dual (or more) first person perspectives, but this book actually didn’t make me hate that as much as I have in the past. I still think it’s unnecessary, but I think it helped that the two main characters were female, rather than *insert obligatory heroine here* and *insert inane love interest here*.

The idea of people’s destinies being extracted from birth and then being forced into a particular role is a really interesting one. I’ve read a lot of dystopian novels to date, but this one seemed to be a particularly unique idea. The flaws in the society were clear straight away, with those who had different colours being seen as somehow lower… even less than human, in some cases.

I did actually like both Madden and Dax as characters. I didn’t like Madden in her first appearance, but once I got to see things from her perspective, she became a much more likable character.

I felt that both Madden and Dax evolved over the course of this book. Getting glimpses into their home lives helped a lot with understanding them. I felt sympathy towards both of them and it seemed they were both victims of the problems with society… even if Madden didn’t seem to be at first.

I had thought that Laira would play a bigger part here than she actually did… but I’m kind of glad that she didn’t, since she really annoyed me as a secondary character. I liked Dax’s interactions with Theron… and I especially liked Madden’s with Sol. I really liked Sol as a character. I would have liked to see more of him personally, but he did seem to have a life outside of Madden, which is always good.

I did also like Dax’s interactions with her brothers, even though I got confused with the other ones who weren’t major characters. It was good to see her get on well with most of her family.

The ending of the book was left open, but I’m still interested enough to read the next book/s. It would be good to see the characters again and how they deal with the problems coming their way.