Review: "Ink Exhchange" by Melissa Marr

Title: Ink Exchange
Series: Wicked Lovely #2
Author: Melissa Marr
Publisher: HarperTeen
Year: 2008
















"Mortal affections and faery rivalries continue to collide in the town of Huntsdale, as New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr takes urban fantasy to new heights.

After suffering a terrible trauma at the hands of her brother's dealer friends, Leslie becomes obsessed with the idea of getting a tattoo – it's the one thing that will allow her to reclaim her body, renew her self-confidence. And when Rabbit, her local tattoo artist, shows her a secret book of his own designs, she finds one of them irresistible.

Soon, her back is adorned with a pair of mysterious eyes, framed by black wings. Leslie feels good – more than good. Nothing bad can touch her. But what she doesn't know is that her new tattoo binds her tightly to the faery whose symbol she chose: Irial, the exquisitely dangerous king of the Dark Court…"

When they say that this book is darker then the first one then they were not kidding. It really  is quite gloomy for a faery story but seeing as this book is about the Dark Court then I guess this makes sense. And I like it. 

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Melissa Marr made her impression on me a long time ago. I like her books and “Wicked Lovely” series is one of my favourite fairy stories. Although if I am completely honest then I must say that in this book the mystical part of it all was a little bit overdone. I have read this book three-four times now and it still confuses me. I mean I guess at the end I understand what was going on and have that d’uh moment. But you would think that I would not be confused if I already knew what was going on. 

The story is probably the most unique one out there. Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure I have not read anything like that before. And it is such a good idea. The only problem I have with this book is that it seems to be a bit of a filler in between books one and three. It is sort of there to explain what happens to Niall and the Dark Court. That is why the story is amazing but drawn out a little bit. It could have been a novella. But I do not regret reading it, even for the fourth time.

As far as characters go. We still have Aislinn, Seth and Keenan, but they are now side characters.
Our main protagonist for this story is Leslie, one of Aislinn’s mortal friends. She might be a little indecisive and wallowing every once in a while but for a character this complicated I will have to forgive that. The way she was this all-out fun girl who now is afraid of every shadow… It is sad, tragic even. But her determination to take back her life is what made me like her. For her it meant getting ink and claiming her body as her own. For a book character she definitely has my respect.
Then we have Niall. Advisor to Keenan, he is charged with making sure that Leslie is safe. As a little spoiler alert, it does not quite turn out as expected. I like Niall as a character and even more so in later books, but in this one it still mystifies me what is it exactly that made him fall for a human girl that hard. But maybe it is just my cynicism and disbelief about looking into someone’s eyes and “just knowing”.
Something Leslie said about Irial has become one of my favourite phrases. “He looked like a sin in a suit”. If there is a sentence to make me like an imaginary faery guy, then that was it. After that Iri was awesome. Weird, yes, I know. His narrative is interesting as well informative, it’s the one that lets you understand what is going on. 

All in all I definitely liked “Ink Exchange”. It is not as good as the first book perhaps but necessary for the whole thing to make sense the way it eventually will. From me, this book gets 4 stars. Or maybe 4.5. I haven’t decided yet. All I know is that despite it all I still very much like this book.

 This review has been brought to you by your Book Mistress for the day.

-Linda