Review – Poison Ink by Christopher Golden (2.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Horror
Length: 279 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: July 8, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0385734837
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Swapped through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 2.5/5 stars

I picked this book up many years ago when I was in a Christopher Golden fan phase. I finally sat down and read it. It wasn’t all that great; it was a very generic YA thriller that wasn’t all that engaging and was incredibly predictable.

This is a very generic YA thriller about a group of friends who go to get tattoos together. One of the girls, Sammi, chickens out and the other girls start to get increasingly (almost insanely) cruel to her. Sammi then tries to figure out what is going on her friends and links their actions back to the tattoos they got. Sammi then works to solve the mystery behind these tattoos and tries to find a way to save her friends.

The whole thing could have been very dark and edgey but just ended up being kind of blah. The characters are all very plain and not all that interesting. The main heroine deals with many typical teenage issues, but in a very shallow way (for example her parents’ marriage is falling apart and she doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere).

It was written okay but kind of boring and predictable despite the subject matter. It could have been done as a really dark and impactful story but it was all just too rushed and not filled out very well. It’s a quick read but not really worth it.

Overall this felt more like a story idea than an actual filled out complete book. Despite a subject and setting that could have been very dark and edgy everything comes out feeling kind of boring and predictable. The book ended up being completely forgettable. I wouldn’t recommend it.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge