Ok...I picked this up thinking it would just be another teen fairy book. Fun and easy and quick to read. It was all of those things and more. Totally unique take on the world of the "twixt" and a different way to look at teen-fairy(ish) romances. I LOVE Ink! Although, I do have to admit that I agree with some other reviewers on here....Inq(uah)? Seriously. ( )

I enjoyed “Indelible” more than I expected to. The romantic relationship was balanced out nicely by Joy’s relationships with her family and best friend. Additionally, there was no love triangle or at first sight. It moved along quickly, but not unrealistically so.

I found the pace of the novel slowed to almost a crawl approximately two-thirds of the way through the book, but picked back up to a satisfyingly exciting climax and ending. The notes of suspense and horror sprinkled through the entirety was wonderful and properly heart-pounding, though there were times when fewer words within a description would have done more.

Joy’s relationship with her best friend, Monica, feels slightly stunted in a (unfortunately) natural kind of way—Joy is keeping massive secrets and isn’t the best liar, so Monica’s irritation at being kept out of the loop makes sense. Their troubles aren’t precisely resolved, per se, by the end of the story, but neither are the two girls at all estranged. It is a realistic portrayal of a friendship in the midst of a rough patch, though I hope Monica is read in to the supernatural situation in the sequel.

Joy’s relationship with her father is touching and realistic, for how much time he spends at work or otherwise away from home. There is a great deal of not-saying-things that builds up between them, and Metcalf uses a delicate touch to portray the weight of their sorrow and love. The added complication of Shelley, her father’s new girlfriend, is a nice touch that showcases Joy’s maturity and desire to make things both normal and easier for her father quite nicely.

The biggest issue I had with “Indelible” is the confused portrayal of acceptable queerness. Joy’s brother comes out to her over instant messaging, and her first response is blank shock. Her second response is confusion and heavily tied up with her negative emotional response to her mother’s abandonment. Joy and her brother reconcile, but she responds poorly to a (literally) life-saving kiss bestowed by Inq (who is female) later on in the story. It freaks and grosses her out even though it was not a sexual action.

The saving grace for all this, for me, is Monica (the best friend)’s reaction to Joy’s brother coming out. She clearly doesn’t see it as a big deal, and chastises Joy for turning it into a bigger deal than it ought to be. That reassured me that Joy’s squeamishness is her own, and not the author’s.

(And, I’ll admit, it is nice to see multiple instances within a YA novel dealing with the existence of homosexuality, and even two different examples. Joy’s brother goes off to college, realizes he’s gay, and settles in with a nice boyfriend, while Inq is bisexual—or something along those lines, perhaps pansexual—owing largely to her inhumanity and interminable age.)

All that aside, the romance between Joy and Ink is sweet and deep. We get to see several sides of them as a unit, from a beautiful moment when he examines her ear and hands’ details to the aftermath of her assault wherein she would rather send Ink to exact vengeance on her torturer than have him sit by her bedside. It is because of the varied scenes and experiences we see Joy and Ink go through together that it becomes clear that, while they are not necessarily two parts of a whole, they do balance each other and care for each other in a meaningful and moving way.

Overall, I enjoyed “Indelible” and fully plan to get my hands a copy of the sequel when it is released. (Which, according to Dawn Metcalf, will be sometime in May 2014.) I recommend it to fans of YA fantasy, of modern fairy stories, and of paranormal romances. “Indelible” is both sweet and scary by turns, and it is fully worth the paperback price. ( )

I received this book in exchange for an honest review

If you want a lesson on how not to write a decent fantasy book, refer to Indelible. This book has everything I don’t want in a book; it barely has the minimum basics. It will be near impossible to improve this series; if the foundation is not sturdy, the rest of the series will most likely suck.

Where is the plot? Where is the structure? I have no idea why most of the things occurred, because the author paid minimal heed to the essentials of her world. It’s only been a week since I've finished Indelible, and the only thing I can recall is that Ink doesn't have fingernails. That’s pretty sad.

You know, there’s this little thing called world building, and it would've helped so much if the author expanded on the world and had paid more attention to this aspect instead of describing minute things I could care less about as a reader, like a stain on Joy’s textbook (yes, that was brought up once). In order to have a compelling fantasy, it is essential to build up the world and make us visualize it in our heads. If you can’t do that, you shouldn't be writing a fantasy novel in the first place.

There is very little than annoys me more in a book than cheesy writing. Coming in a close second is the unnecessary overuse of exclamation marks that is not in dialogue. Combine these two, and I’m very annoyed. All it shows is that the writing is very juvenile and childish.

Examples?

“She didn’t want to think. She felt better already!”

“It wasn’t bad!”

“Girls’ Self Defense 103: Never give up!”

“She wasn’t a prisoner! This was her house!”

...



THE PAIN.

Overall, the writing was a mess. It had no flow whatsoever, and describing every single atom that exists in a room is not going to improve the writing.

Like I said, the plot lacked structure. I felt like the author was just making up this stuff as I progressed through the story. I’m still confused about everything that happened. There was no leading up to the conflict; it came out of nowhere, and frankly, made little sense at all.

On to Joy, the main character. Joy, oh Joy, you were not a joy to read about. This girl is the epitome of idiocy. She has no sense of self-preservation - not because she’s overly heroic or anything, but because she’s stupid. At one point, a random stranger came up to her and asked her if she knew about some bizarre thing (that she clearly knew nothing about). Naturally, she said that she did know what he was talking about (??). I don’t even know why.

"Excuse me," he continued. "Did you see the Kodama?"
"Yes," she said.”

HMM. I WONDER WHAT GOT YOU INTO THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE, JOY!

Another admirable quality of Joy is her clinginess. I never understood Ink and Joy’s relationship; it was so awkward that cringing came as second nature to me during my reading experience. At one point she also wanted Ink to visit her “right now” when he was clearly using all his energy to save his sister and could barely handle the exhaustion. But NO! His sister's suffering is SO much less important than seeing his girlfriend! (Not that I’m defending Ink, or sympathizing with him, I’m just pointing out a fact.)

Completely ignored in Indelible is characterization. I don’t give a crap about any of the characters in the book. I’m at a loss for what else to say because there is absolutely no character development to begin with. This is probably one of the worst books in the characterization department, folks. I’m scratching my head trying to remember Joy’s best friend’s name…

Indelible’s got the whole package; crappy writing, an unstructured plot, no character development, and no world-building. To top it all off, the book failed to connect with me on an emotional level, and I couldn't wait to finish this book.

*sigh* Nothing to see here, guys. ( )

NOTE: I received the eARC from the publisher via Netgalley. Thanks

I have to say that I actually enjoyed Indelible a lot. At times it moved way too slow for my preferences, but I'm going to overlook that.

I did like the new twist to the idea of the Fair Folk. I mean, in all the books I've read so far, the fairies are always extremely beautiful, mesmerizing and evil. They never have good intentions and will always act selfishly.

Not so here.

In the world of Indelible, rarely is a fairy looking anywhere close to resembling the humans. Most look grotesque - like a merge of several creatures. Of course, there are a handful of fair maiden warriors who look stunningly gorgeous, but this seems to be rather the exception, not the norm.

Our main fairy characters here are two personals, namely Indelible Ink and his 'sister' Invisible Inq. They're made entirely of ink and the sole purpose of their existence is marking up the humans with the sigils of the fey. As in, ensuring that humans will continue believing in the Fair Folk, thus ensuring the survival of said faery creatures.

As you can see, this is an entirely new concept here. But somehow I'm failing to understand how a person (or whatever Ink and Inq are, really) made entirely out of ink could experience any semblance of thoughts, feelings, etc. And, what bothers me the most is that it isn't explained. Since I'm not one of those people who take any information as a given, I can't just pass over this, as if it wasn't an issue. It is, and I need answers.

I must say however that besides this fallout, the story was quite nice. It had a nice flow, depth to the world building and characters. It did remind me of City of Bones in the first chapter, but then the resemblance was gone and I was left reading an entirely new idea, which I really enjoyed.

So, the lead female, Joy, won me over even though it took her some time. What I particularly liked about her was that she rarely acted stupid. She asked the right questions and didn't stop until a satisfactory enough answer was provided. Of course, there was something special about her that made even that stone hard Indelible Ink notice her and mark her as his own (even if it were an accident).

Undoubtedly, that single action of his was where the story began. From then on until the end it was a whirlwind of secrets, impossible visions, curses, adventure, war and of course, the sweetest romance. Ink was such an inexperienced, innocent boy, I believe our world needs more like him. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: This had a very unique and different premise. I really enjoyed the book as a whole, but the pacing wasn’t the best and I wasn’t a huge fan of the characters.

Opening Sentence: The music beat hard against Joy’s ribs.

The Review:

Joy Malone is 16 years old and in the last year her life fell apart. Her mom left and moved to L.A. to live with a younger guy. Joy gave up on her dream to become an Olympic gymnast, and her brother left for college. She now lives with her dad and she gets pretty lonely at times. One night her best friend convinces her to go to a dance club, and Joy’s life is changed forever. A mysterious boy with all black eyes tries to cut out her eyes, but he doesn’t succeed. Instead he ends up leaving her with his signature mark.

Ink is a creature from The Twixt. The Twixt is another dimension filled with magical creatures and there is a delicate balance that must be maintained between the two worlds. The creatures from The Twixt mark humans as their property and are therefore responsible for them. Ink and his sister Inq are in charge of marking the humans for the creatures. It turns out that Joy has something called “The Sight” where she is able to see the creatures and Ink was trying to protect her by taking her eyes, but he missed. Now that she bears Ink’s mark she has to prove to all the creatures that her and Ink are lovers, because Ink isn’t allowed to make mistakes. If they can’t prove that Joy’s mark was intentional then they could both forfeit their lives.

Joy is our heroine in the story and I had mixed feelings about her. She has a really whiny voice at parts in the book and her bad attitude got on my nerves. She kept feeling bad for herself and I felt that in that aspect she never really got any better. Now with that being said, there were things that I really liked about her as well. She is sweet, caring, loyal, and independent. She is pretty good at taking care of herself, but not too stubborn to ask for help if she needs it. For me, I would have to say that she was just a middle of the road character for me. I really wanted to love her, but she was just a little too irritating for me.

Ink is a very interesting character. He has the image of a human, but he is missing things like finger nails and a belly button. For me he was a very hard character to connect to, he hasn’t had a lot of interaction with humans before so everything with Joy is new. The problem is that because he is not human he doesn’t have certain characteristics that come naturally to humans. I realize that is what the author was going for when she created him but instead of it helping me to understand him better, it made me not like him as much. He is the love interest in the book and I really wanted to swoon over him, but I just couldn’t.

Now I know that this review has sounded pretty negative so far, but to be honest, I actually did like the book. The plot was fun and intriguing and it kept me interested the whole way through. The idea was very unique and different than anything else I have ever read. The romance was actually very sweet and well developed. I love the cover, it is very captivating and fits the book perfectly. The pacing was a little off for me; there were scenes that really seemed to drag and others that I would have liked more detail. I think that would have helped it flow better. So yes, there were some parts that were disappointing, but overall I still thought it was a fun read. I do look forward to the next book in the story and I hope that some of the things I didn’t like about this one will be different in the next installment. I would recommend this to fans of YA Fantasy. I think it would be an enjoyable read for you.

Notable Scene:

Turning around, Joy squinted. The sky outside was a patchwork of blue-orange low-glow. The wind was blowing through the backyard. She could hear it whistling outside. Maybe a branch was scraping the glass?

There was a long, drawn-out scrrrrrrrrrrrick!

A large shadow with glowing eyes loomed in the dark. The eyes were shaped like arrowheads and fiery, electric white.

Joy stumbled.

The eyes slanted in amusement. There was a scratch at the glass again.

Joy’s back hit the wall, her whole body tingling. The kitchen phone was still on the couch, impossibly far away.

So was her voice. So was her breath. She stared, quivering.

A large palm pressed flat against the glass, thick fingers ending in points. There were only four of them. The hand flexed and dropped into darkness, but the eyes were still there, burning.

Joy blinked her one eye over and over, gripping the edge of the sliding closet door. She couldn’t be seeing what she was seeing. She wanted to hide behind the coats, but she didn’t dare let the thing out of her sight. If it didn’t stay where she could see it, it could be anywhere.

Wake up, she told herself. Wake up, Joy!

The eyes narrowed. The claw reappeared and thumped dully against the glass. Once. Twice.

FTC Advisory: Harlequin Teen provided me with a copy of Indelible. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )