Ink Exchange

Author: Melissa Marr
Publisher: HarperCollins
Released: April 1, 2009 (paperback)
Genre: Paranormal YA
Series: Wicked Lovely

I broke one of my big rules: I didn't finish reading a book. I just couldn't get into the story, couldn't bring myself to care for the characters. Part of that may be because the main characters in Ink Exchange are peripheral characters in Wicked Lovely - which I expected, but these are really peripheral. Leslie didn't play much of a role in the first book, so I had to approach this like a first book itself, not like the second in a series. Once I did that, actually, I did start caring about Leslie, but there was too much - or too little- else going on to really get my attention. Especially Irial - maybe he gets better later on, but honestly, I couldn't stomach reading so much from the point of view of a sadistic, cruel, unforgivable character. Events start happening pretty quickly in this book, but I couldn't see a clear picture of where they were going, and by the time I get to page 100 of 320 pages and I don't know what the main problem is, what the characters' motivations are, I lose interest, Which is what happened here. I'm not saying that this is a bad book, I'm saying that it might get better further in, but I think a book has to make you want to keep reading until you get to that point.

I'm really disappointed, because I wanted to read more about Aislinn and Kennan and Seth and Donia. But that whole bit is peripheral in this book, so I didn't get to see more of their relationships. So this didn't really do it for me.