(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
While alien invasions and apocalyptic plots aren’t entirely unique, I did find this book to be a really intriguing one, with a blurb that held connotations of Romeo and Juliet.
I found Abel to be a character who was really easy to relate to. It was good to have the opportunity to see her interacting with Becks and Ashlynn before the Others put in their appearance… and I felt that there was a really good tense atmosphere right from the start of the book.
I liked the fact that Abel had all of the rules she felt she had to live by. It was really interesting to see how she broke each of those rules in different ways through the course of the book. I found her an easy character to care about… though I really didn’t like Kane very much to begin with. I felt that his personality later contrasted sharply with how he’d come across at first… and I wasn’t sure I really understood much about the politics later on and who was in charge of where.
It was interesting to see that the Others came across like vampires, but I was left with a lot of questions even by the end of the book… such as how they’d been able to live on their home planet. Whose blood had sustained them then? It was interesting to see the society that Kane had his human staff members live in and the fact that what had once been Canada was so vastly different to Population… Abel’s home to begin with.
I did feel that there were some elements of info-dumping in this book… as well as some elements of repetition and the sudden appearance of skills/past events that hadn’t been foreshadowed. While I did feel that the relationship between Kane and Abel grew easily and naturally through the course of this book, those elements did spoil my enjoyment a bit.
I did find myself pulled easily into the world of this book, though I did have some trouble picturing the Others in my head at first. Abel had a goal that was realistic and I could care about along with her.
While the book did end on a cliffhanger… I was emotionally invested in this book enough to want to read the next book/s in the series.
Ink of Blood 