Ink of Blood

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

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thought this book sounded really intriguing when I read the blurb of it. The cover was also particularly appealing, which is always a good thing.

It was interesting to get a glimpse into a world where everyone was online virtually all the time… but I actually found the story really self-contained. Although there were some instances where it showed how important technology was to people’s lives, I felt there was very little detail outside of the area Marisa lived.

I really did like the fact that Marisa had friendships online, but I couldn’t help but notice that she also neglected her siblings a lot. Pati made me think of my niece… and I felt a lot of empathy towards her, with how desperate she was to get her sister’s attention.

The drug Bluescreen was especially creepy to read about. I thought it was interesting to see how the society had come up with a drug that was completely digital… even though there were clearly other drugs on the market as well. It was also interesting to see that there were still gangs and other real-life dangers… as well as how Marisa interacted with her brother Chuy.

I did think that there were some leaps (or connections) that Marisa and the others didn’t make. I thought that Bao was a particularly interesting character, especially given how different he was to everyone else when it came to using the technology… or, rather, not using it.

There were a lot of good elements of tension in this book. While I did get a bit confused about what was reality and what was digital at times, I still cared about what happened to the characters and that they were safe.

I didn’t really know what to make of Saif for a lot of the book and I would have liked to see a bit more of Marisa’s parents. I wasn’t sure I especially liked Anja… but I did like Sahara and I would have liked to see more of her.

I did find this book entertaining and easy to read. I’d be interested in reading a sequel and seeing more of the characters and world of this book.