Review: Indelible by Dawn Metcalf (Love gone wrong)

Title: Indelible
Author: Dawn Metcalf
Series: The Twixt
Book #: 1
Pages: 384
Reading Level: YA
Book Rating: 
Goodreads Rating: 3.72
T.B.Published: Jul. 30th, 2013.

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…

THE TWIXT

Taschima's POV:

I really wanted this book to be on my "favorites" shelf. That cover looks amazing, and it has a good premise, but sadly it tried to hard to be one of the cool kids.

Indelible had both its good aspects and its bad. On one hand it was entertaining, moved at a brisk pace, and it was very action packed. Plus it had one character in particular who was very endearing. On the other hand the world was underdeveloped (or maybe it was so developed that it didn't make any sense as in we were just supposed to get it) and the plot was slightly anticlamatic. I've read it has been described as "unnecessarily complicated" and I would have to agree 100% with this statement.

Indelible was very strange, and confusing. I still don't know what in the hell the Twist is, or where the hell the council is sticking their heads in (or what they do most of the time other than stalk humans and mark them without their consent) for them NOT to even notice what the evil wench was planning. I still don't understand the whole magic aspect of this book because to me there was just a bunch of claiming and no explaining. In order for someone to have your signaturae (or whatever) they have to accept it willingly (I think?), but our main character was claimed four different times from different people all against her will. Overall it was a huge what the fuck, and when something was tried to be explained it was only made more confusing.

Which brings me to the "world" part. There was an otherworld in these pages, it was just not explained very thoroughly. The only glimpses you get of it is whenever Ink and Joy pop in to visit Graus Claude (a weird polished monster with 4 hands and a butler with biceps- monster was short of an English accent) in his weird office, and even then I am not totally positive if that was an otherworld or just England or something because it was not explained! On one instance I heard talk about Joy getting a plane ticket back to her home so that makes me think the office was in "her world" but then every time they went to this "office" time would stand still on Joy's side of the fence, allowing Ink to impress the girl by catching a gallon of milk suspended in the air. I know I'm rambling but I am just trying to understand what the hell is going on. Let's just say there was poor world building.

Joy was your typical teenager with problems, and she loved to boast about them. I didn't connect with her, and for the most part just felt annoyed by her. Her "insta love" with Ink to me was born out of her neediness for someone to make her their center of their universe than anything else. So no, I was not impressed by the "love" in Indelible. By the end I would have been totally okay with Joy being left behind and Ink moving on to find someone he could actually have a future with. Ink is invisible to everybody. No one can see him, not even if he wanted to make himself known. So Joy's parents can't see him, nor her best friend, nor anybody! If they were to be caught making out you would see Joy in a curious position with herself.

Which leads me to my next question, if a virgin has sex with a boy invisible to the rest of the world does said love making count? If a tree falls but no one is there to witness it does it make a sound? Not that the subject of sex was ever an issue when it came to Joy and Ink because as Joy clearly stated in the novel:

"It's not like that," she said. "It's not about sex."
To which her "best friend" replied:
"Not about sex?"

Ink was interesting to read about. I liked his character, I believe he was the only one I really liked because he was interesting and original. Joy is dating the invisible kid, who by the way happens to be the most clueless virgin of them all. He has lived AEONS without "claiming" a human of his own, until one faithful night he notices Joy, she notices him, and he tries to take her eyes out as a souvenir. What made him notice Joy? I do not know. He just did, and she happened to look back. Ink was like a little kid, learning how to be human on the outside as well as the inside. I would read more if only to see how he does and how he grows. I am not attracted to him, nor do I think about him in any romantic way. I couldn't, he is just so clueless and vulnerable. Though that does not mean he is dumb or easily intimidated, I believe he took someone's heart out in one instance so beware of the confused virgin!

The ending...

There was a lot going on. A fierce battle, monsters killing monsters. The bay guy finally revealed, laughing in a corner because it thinks it's invincible. There was a ward, there were signaturae, and Ink was tragically hurt. By this point I was so far gone though that all I wanted was to get to the ending to see how it all was going to turn out.

Also what the hell was the FLASH! FLASH! all about? Other than fricking annoying that is, and distracting.

All in all, hit and a miss when it comes to me anyways. I didn't think the world building was strong, and the characters didn't catch my interest (other than Ink, him I would like to see grow). The cover is stunning and it is a weird novel but I think it tried to bite off more than it could chew. It has a lot of potential to be great with a bit more of intricate world, not to mention character, building. It was more superficial than truly captivating. While it lasted I was entertained but this does not mean I will be running to the nearest bookstore when the sequel comes out.

Did I mention I really wanted to love this novel?

ARC acquired via BEA in exchange for an honest review.