Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

I’ve always had a fascination with books with dreams as a main plot. I liked the idea of Alice dreaming about Max long before meeting him. It was particularly interesting to see the way the dreams turned weird and actually came across as dreams, rather than being completely logical.

It was nice to see the book written entirely from Alice’s POV. I enjoyed getting to know her as a character through the course of the book and I especially liked seeing her relationship with her father. I really didn’t like what I learned of her mother… even though there weren’t a lot of details about her.

There was a very surreal feeling for most of the book, but that did make sense towards the end. I did enjoy seeing Alice’s friendship with Oliver, who was quite an amusing character, though the more I learned of him, the more sympathetic I felt towards him. It was good to learn a bit more of the history between him and Max.

Although I really don’t like love triangles, I thought that the one in this book made sense, but I did feel that too much of the storyline was glossed over. It would have been good to see more interactions involving Celeste, particularly given that she didn’t seem to play much of a part later on.

I really did like seeing Sophia’s friendship with Alice. It was good to see that Alice did have a friend who believed her and who she could talk to. However, I did think that everyone believed in the dreams a bit too quickly. The plot was quite simple, with very little in the way of surprises.

While there wasn’t much in the way of action, there were some really emotional scenes, particularly involving Max and Alice. I thought it was good to see their interactions together… and certain things I learned did make me a bit sad.

I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future. This book was simple and easy to read. I did like the ending and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. It would be good to see more of the secondary characters in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I thought this book was quite an entertaining one. There was a lot in this book that drew me in and I found it really easy to read… at least for the most part. The difficulty came because I was drawn into the darker parts of the book.

I found Liberty to be a character who was really easy to empathise with. I had a lot of sympathy for her in regards to her relationship with her mother… but I did like seeing her relationship with her Grandmother. While I would have liked to see a bit more of some of the secondary characters in the book, it was really good to see Liberty interacting with the people she did.

I thought it was good to see Liberty having to deal with the fact her grandmother was sick and also problems as a teenager. I really didn’t like Cole as a character, even towards the end of the book. I thought that he came across as really abusive and I found it really hard to see anything about him as sympathetic.

I thought it was strange to see how Liberty was the only one who questioned the effects of the mine and what it was doing to the water. Picturing the orange liquid in my mind was sufficient to make me decide I’d never want to even risk it. And I was surprised that the doctor didn’t seem to try any harder to see the link between the mountain and the increase in the disease and defects.

I thought it was really interesting to see the effects the mine had on the people in the town. I also liked seeing how Liberty had to deal with the problems with trying to make the money stretch for food and for things like gas.

I did like seeing Liberty’s friendship with Iris and I would have liked to see more of their interactions. I did like the ending of the book, even though I did kind of wish it had gone a bit better.

In the future, I would be interested in reading more books by this author… and it would also be good to see more of the characters and how things might turn out for them later on.