Ink is Thicker Than Water by Amy Spalding | Book Review

TITLE: Ink is Thicker Than Water
AUTHOR: Amy Spalding
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Entangled Teen / 2013
SERIES: No
SOURCE: Received for review from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Goodreads / Author's Website

Summary
For Kellie Brooks, family has always been a tough word to define. Combine her hippie mom and tattooist stepdad, her adopted overachieving sister, her younger half brother, and her tough-love dad, and average Kellie’s the one stuck in the middle, overlooked and impermanent. When Kellie’s sister finally meets her birth mother and her best friend starts hanging with a cooler crowd, the feeling only grows stronger.

But then she reconnects with Oliver, the sweet and sensitive college guy she had a near hookup with last year. Oliver is intense and attractive, and she’s sure he’s totally out of her league. But as she discovers that maybe intensity isn’t always a good thing, it’s yet another relationship she feels is spiraling out of her control.

It’ll take a new role on the school newspaper and a new job at her mom’s tattoo shop for Kellie to realize that defining herself both outside and within her family is what can finally allow her to feel permanent, just like a tattoo.

Thoughts and Reactions
Ink is Thicker Than Water is the first book I've read by Amy Spalding. I kept meaning to read The Reece Malcolm List after hearing amazing things about it when it first came out, but somehow never got around to it. I'm regretting that now because I thoroughly enjoyed her second novel. 

Ink is Thicker Than Water delves into non-traditional family dynamics and what it's like to slowly start to grow up, change and maybe grow apart from things that had always been a constant in your life. Spalding's writing doesn't glamorize or making anything more dramatic; it holds a mirror up to a lot of very common experiences. Kellie is a middle child in a fairly non-traditional family. Her parents are divorced, her mother remarried, her older sister is adopted and her mother runs a tattoo shop with her stepfather. It's messy and loving and Kellie is just kind of floating along. She's one of those teens who doesn't want to appear to try to hard and doesn't think she's that great at anything, but when her sister starts pulling away in favour of her biological mother and her best friend starts ditching her for the popular girls Kellie feels completely un-tethered and needs to find herself again. 

I enjoyed reading about Kellie's experiences specifically because nothing seemed that unusual or out of the ordinary. There was a story arc and some drama, but it felt real, like this was just Kellie's life and not a soap opera. The family dynamic in this story was messy and beautiful and real as it should be. You can tell all of her parents care about her, even if she can't always see it and despite the hurt they can cause each other at times there was always love beneath it. I sometimes love reading about positive family dynamics; they can be rare and you're so lucky if you have a loving and supportive family and I can get behind a book that shows them, mess and all. 

There were times in the book I wanted to shake all the characters. Kellie made some poor choices and her sister Sara at times was downright mean. However, just because I didn't support every decision made in the book, doesn't mean I didn't understand where each one is coming  from. These characters often did not make the best decisions, but they always made sense for the character and I could see their reasoning. 

The relationships in this book were what made it for me. The relationship between Kellie and her family was supportive and you could sense the love, the worry, the hope, but Kellie's friendships and relationship with Oliver, the cute college boy were also pretty spot on. Friendship is high school can be hard; people are changing and growing apart and finding new interests and sometimes it's hard to maintain friendships that you once valued so much. It's this kind of problem that Kellie faces and her struggle to find her place and make new friends was so relatable for me. That sort of in between time when you feel like you don't have any close friends and aren't sure where you're supposed to sit at lunch or how you're supposed to act? Been there. I think a lot of people could relate to Kellie's experiences in that way. 

I didn't think Kellie's relationship with Oliver was the most well drawn relationship, but I can also forgive a lot since we're getting the story from Kellie's perspective. For her having a boyfriend is more about having somebody to make out with and talk to a little after. It's not the most mature relationship, but it made sense. She likes him and likes hanging out with him, but finds him a little intense (which he totally is). Plus she's got so much going on in her life she can't really get that emotionally invested in anybody. Also. She's sixteen. Hanging out and making out with somebody you're pretty into, but maybe don't love makes sense to me. 

Ink is Thicker Than Water wasn't the most fast-paced or exciting book I've read this year, but I found it a touching and realistic portrayal of family, friends, growing up and finding your place in the world. It doesn't speak to a universal teenage experience, but it does speak to one type of experience that I found captivating. I would re-read this book and am looking forward to reading the rest of Amy Spalding's works.

Relic by Renee Collins | Book Review

TITLE: Relic
AUTHOR: Renee Collins
PUBLISHER/YEAR: Entangled Teen / August 27, 2013
SERIES: No
SOURCE: Received for review from publisher. This is no way affected my opinion.

Goodreads / Author's Website

Where should I even begin with Relic. It's one of the few books that really defies genres, alternating between western, fantasy and romance. While at first the combination might seem like a bit of a stretch, I was intrigued and had to give the book a try. I'm really glad I did because while it was an imperfect read, it was thoroughly entertaining and managed to surprise me along the way.

The book begins with a small town burning to the ground leaving no survivors. Maggie Davis is living on the outskirts of town with her younger brother and sister; their parents are away for the evening when the fire is lit. At the end of the day only Maggie and her sister survive and must learn to scrape by on their own. In this world, ancient relics can be dug from the ground and used to harness powers such as fire, water, invisibility etc. Maggie begins working at a local saloon, but soon proves to have the ability to harness these powers and leaves the saloon to be trained under Alvar Castilla, a powerful man who runs most of the town. She must learn how to navigate the new rules she's living under while providing for her sister, but she also wants to figure out who is responsible for burning Messa before it happens again. Like I said, it's a blend of genres that defies most classifications.

One of my favourite things about Relic was Maggie. She's such a strong protagonist. She may not be physically strong and she doesn't make the right choices one hundred percent of the time, but she's always struggling to do the right thing. She accepts her new responsibilities and does everything in her power to protect those she cares about. She has some very admirable qualities that make her an excellent protagonist in a fantasy novel. Sometimes she's saved, but she's not completely powerless. I didn't find she fell into the damsel in distress trap, but she still showed some human foibles. I really love that in a character.

So I didn't mention it in my description of the novel, but there is some romance in Relic. I wouldn't call it the A plot line, but it does play an important role. Maggie falls for Landon, a local cowboy on leave. He's pretty great, thoughtful, kind, seems to genuinely care about Maggie. I did appreciate that romance didn't dominate the novel though. I mean I think the great thing about this book is that there was a bit of romance, but it was no more important in Maggie's life than her other relationships. She cared about her sister first and foremost and built friendships with some fantastic supporting characters along the way. Adelaide, the saloon's showgirl, is particularly remarkable. She's tough, but also naive and always hoping for something more than what she has. It's kind of heartbreaking and entirely captivating.

The fantasy element of this book was pretty much relegated to the magical relics; the rest was pure western. As somebody who's not a fan of high fantasy, this worked well for me. I thought there was a solid amount of fantasy to balance out the western aspects, but it never became overpowering. However, if you're really looking for a high fantasy novel, well this isn't the book for you.

There was one thing that worried me throughout the novel, the treatment of aboriginal peoples. Westerns don't have the best track record of making natives sympathetic characters and are either villains or occasionally the wise mystics. I was worried that this was the path that Collins was taking when the town burnings were blamed on a local tribe and the only native character renounced his heritage completely. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about that in the end as the tribe's role was expanded beyond generic villain. While there were still some problematic scenes, overall I was pleased.

I didn't love Relic right off the bat, but in the end I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and would be happy to read anything else by Collins. It's a different sort of book and I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but I ended up getting totally sucked into Maggie's story. Between the mystery and the magic I was intrigued and didn't want to put it down.