Review: Indelible by Dawn Metcalf

Some things are permanent.

Indelible.

And they cannot be changed back.

Joy Malone learns this the night she sees a stranger with all-black eyes across a crowded room—right before the mystery boy tries to cut out her eye. Instead, the wound accidentally marks her as property of Indelible Ink, and this dangerous mistake thrusts Joy into an incomprehensible world—a world of monsters at the window, glowing girls on the doorstep, and a life that will never be the same.

Now, Joy must pretend to be Ink’s chosen one—his helper, his love, his something for the foreseeable future...and failure to be convincing means a painful death for them both. Swept into a world of monsters, illusion, immortal honor and revenge, Joy discovers that sometimes, there are no mistakes.

Somewhere between reality and myth lies…

Paperback, 384 pages

Published July 30th 2013 by Harlequin Teen 

 

(info grabbed from GoodReads)

I am going to get right to the chase: Indelible was a good book, but not a great book.  Not on the fence on being a great book either, it was just good.  It was enjoyable and I didn’t want to throw it across the room, but I didn’t ache to keep reading either.  The biggest pro is that Dawn Metcalf has a great imagination and has created a novel using new ideas -- something not seen terribly often.  She mixes faerie mythos and creatures from her own mind to create a new world for the reader.  However, fresh ideas do not necessarily make a great novel. 

The book revolves around a very original mythology of fae created by the author.  The world of Indelible is creative and great imagination food.  The issue became though, that there was very little that was original besides the backdrop of the story.  Joy is your average YA female lead; she doesn't have a particularly strong personality, she's not a dynamic character in any sense, and she's not particularly joyful.  She's not particularly anything.  Ink is your typical aloof male character, with his lack of interest at first but overall vulnerability that develops because of the female lead.  Though there were some very well done scenes between the two characters that sparked with emotion, overall it wasn’t enough for me.  The romance, which was more the focus of Indelible, was rather blah for a romance novel.

My big dilemma with the world building was the stark contrast of the original concepts in the world mixed with the bland romantic plot.  It felt to me as though the story was too original in some aspects for how unoriginal it was in others.  I got the overwhelming feeling at times that I had read this book before, but with a different backdrop.  It made it hard for me to continue reading at times as I found myself bored.

Indelible, in my opinion, is a book that readers are going to be torn about.  Some readers, those who are big fans of PNR in all forms and have a less discriminatory eye, will love this book.  Others who are craving something new will feel half starved and underwhelmed. 

Final Thought: 5 out of 10 toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads