(This review may contain spoilers).
I thought the blurb on this book sounded really intriguing, but on the whole, by the time I reached the end of this book, I was actually very disappointed.
While I did find Rhine to be an interesting character at first, I actually grew bored of her by the time I reached the middle of the book. In comparison, I found Helen and Cecily to be more interesting than she was. I would have found either of them to be more intriguing narrators than Rhine was, especially as Rhine showed no real desire to get out of the place she’d found herself in, apart from towards the end, even though she spent so much time thinking about it. And, yes, there was an escape attempt made…but she was such a passive character that it was everyone else who spoke up and lied for her.
I really couldn’t like Linden in this book. Just like Rhine, he was very passive; and I would have liked him a whole lot more if his actions with Cecily hadn’t left my skin crawling. At first, I’d thought he was going to resist it…I was vastly disappointed to see that he wasn’t much different to the rest of the people.
While the start of the book was really quite promising, I felt there was too much summarising of conversations and how Rhine related to the rest of the characters. Entire conversations were just glossed over and it left me with no clear view of how Rhine and Gabriel had developed any kind of emotions towards each other.
Linden’s father could have been a lot more interesting if there was more shown about him than just the whole ‘he gives me the creeps’ vibe Rhine got from him. He could have been a lot more subtle without it being ‘just a sense’.
I did find Rose to be a really interesting character and it was really good to learn more of her history as the book went on, even though she passed away fairly early on. I also really liked the descriptions of Linden’s drawings and work as an architect.
I felt there were a lot of ways this book could have been better, such as if Rhine had been less passive and actually tried to escape at least once, instead of deciding it wasn’t worth trying straight away. I won’t be reading this book again.
Ink of Blood 