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A review by thelizabeth
Ink Is Thicker Than Water by Amy Spalding
5.0
Yes. Yes! I've waited so long to read this!
This is such a sweet, light book that explores a bunch of wonderful, necessary things. And it does so from a place that is beautifully unique: Kellie, our girl, has divorced parents, a step-parent, an adopted sibling, a half sibling, a lawyer dad, and (more excitingly) a tattoo artist mom. They are an awesome family. They go through a lot here, but the ultimate point is that they're a fantastic one. The family's weird blendedness feels really fresh to me. You see a lot of YA authors trying to come up with families that are quirky and lovable, but somehow they never also seem like real families and people, and everybody here does. Everybody in it matters. And I'd pretty much love to meet all of them.
But it's not just cute, the family oddballness. The edges show. In particular, after Kellie's older sister meets her birth mother (noted on the flap copy, part of the main premise), there is a reckoning over the family weirdness. Are they too weird? Weird enough to leave? Now that her sister has something else to compare herself to, Kellie is scared. This new element will rightly rebalance their family, but Kellie did not quite realize before that anything was out of balance. Does biology actually make you fit into your family? Does it give you disadvantages? Why don't you ever feel 100% belonging?
The way this part of the story goes is wrenching to me. It gets so much sadder before it gets better, and I believe every move everyone makes. It is a terrible thing when your family's status quo is thrown off the rails. No one knows the right thing to do, and inaction can be as hurtful as fighting is. In the book, a lot of this develops quietly, through absences rather than big crazy motions. It's numbing and sad, and even though Kellie's desire to put everything back how it was is selfish, we understand what she is trying to mean.
The story lands because these feelings are built and upheld thematically in every single plot thread. Most of what Kellie actually goes through in this book has little to do with her sister, even though that story is incredibly interesting. As it is a YA book, the main plot has to do with a boy, and I find this is actually a sly move for a lot of reasons. First, Kellie's experiences as a too-average girl are not the ones about whom this story ought to be written. While her sister, offscreen, is discovering her identity in a breathtaking and terrifying way, it is Kellie's quite familiar parallel journey to self-discovery that we follow. But the presence of that other story expresses the weight of everything that Kellie is navigating herself.
Also, the boyfriend situation here is complicated. Nothing about it is easy. It's really nice, but (although she indulges in some escapism) none of it is the answer Kellie needs. The boy is not the solution to her identity crisis, and romantic affection is not the solution to her fear of her family losing its essence. It's just one more thing lurching her life into big territory it's never been. Kellie falls for a cool guy and navigates issues with sex and boundaries on her own, and what's really great about it is that it not only maneuvers these issues beautifully, but Kellie's feelings for Oliver always bring us back to her feelings about the rest of her life. Because her life is bigger than him, always. This is such an important way for a romance to be written!
In addition, there's a story about a best-friendship going askew, and while that kind of thing can pop up all the time in YA for all sorts of reasons, it really lands here thanks to every other thing in Kellie's life also having gone askew, in exactly the way that it does. Somehow, each of these things makes her confront the same problems in herself, and getting over that is the real key.
Like the author's previous book, quite a lot of this one has to do with learning self-esteem. Which sounds nice and trite, but again I just like the way it's done here immensely. Kellie has realistic hangups about her self-confidence — the sort that have developed as a reflex to be blasé and noncommittal, to seal off vulnerability — and we watch how the events here finally make her experience a little wake-up call that makes her braver, and closer to grown-up. This is really great, because this is how people actually do change, by finally noticing a thing that shows up everywhere you look, and starts to look wrong. Big changes in life really do develop on a theme. Helpfully, this is also how good books are made.
Anyway, the only thing I really ought to have written in this review is that ***THIS BOOK HAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE ENDINGS EVER***. Ever. I love the ending so much! It kicks ass and is perfect in every way, and it makes me so happy and ugh and it makes me cry and laugh and I want to smack something. WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD. This ending seems so effortless, I feel so sorry for other books.
And such a great title, too.
This is a sentimental round-up, surely: I really care personally about every one of this book's themes, and I like this author a lot. Even though I happen to take it really seriously, this book has a very breezy and silly narrative style that somehow guides you through these things. It works on me. I'm super glad.
This is such a sweet, light book that explores a bunch of wonderful, necessary things. And it does so from a place that is beautifully unique: Kellie, our girl, has divorced parents, a step-parent, an adopted sibling, a half sibling, a lawyer dad, and (more excitingly) a tattoo artist mom. They are an awesome family. They go through a lot here, but the ultimate point is that they're a fantastic one. The family's weird blendedness feels really fresh to me. You see a lot of YA authors trying to come up with families that are quirky and lovable, but somehow they never also seem like real families and people, and everybody here does. Everybody in it matters. And I'd pretty much love to meet all of them.
But it's not just cute, the family oddballness. The edges show. In particular, after Kellie's older sister meets her birth mother (noted on the flap copy, part of the main premise), there is a reckoning over the family weirdness. Are they too weird? Weird enough to leave? Now that her sister has something else to compare herself to, Kellie is scared. This new element will rightly rebalance their family, but Kellie did not quite realize before that anything was out of balance. Does biology actually make you fit into your family? Does it give you disadvantages? Why don't you ever feel 100% belonging?
The way this part of the story goes is wrenching to me. It gets so much sadder before it gets better, and I believe every move everyone makes. It is a terrible thing when your family's status quo is thrown off the rails. No one knows the right thing to do, and inaction can be as hurtful as fighting is. In the book, a lot of this develops quietly, through absences rather than big crazy motions. It's numbing and sad, and even though Kellie's desire to put everything back how it was is selfish, we understand what she is trying to mean.
The story lands because these feelings are built and upheld thematically in every single plot thread. Most of what Kellie actually goes through in this book has little to do with her sister, even though that story is incredibly interesting. As it is a YA book, the main plot has to do with a boy, and I find this is actually a sly move for a lot of reasons. First, Kellie's experiences as a too-average girl are not the ones about whom this story ought to be written. While her sister, offscreen, is discovering her identity in a breathtaking and terrifying way, it is Kellie's quite familiar parallel journey to self-discovery that we follow. But the presence of that other story expresses the weight of everything that Kellie is navigating herself.
Also, the boyfriend situation here is complicated. Nothing about it is easy. It's really nice, but (although she indulges in some escapism) none of it is the answer Kellie needs. The boy is not the solution to her identity crisis, and romantic affection is not the solution to her fear of her family losing its essence. It's just one more thing lurching her life into big territory it's never been. Kellie falls for a cool guy and navigates issues with sex and boundaries on her own, and what's really great about it is that it not only maneuvers these issues beautifully, but Kellie's feelings for Oliver always bring us back to her feelings about the rest of her life. Because her life is bigger than him, always. This is such an important way for a romance to be written!
In addition, there's a story about a best-friendship going askew, and while that kind of thing can pop up all the time in YA for all sorts of reasons, it really lands here thanks to every other thing in Kellie's life also having gone askew, in exactly the way that it does. Somehow, each of these things makes her confront the same problems in herself, and getting over that is the real key.
Like the author's previous book, quite a lot of this one has to do with learning self-esteem. Which sounds nice and trite, but again I just like the way it's done here immensely. Kellie has realistic hangups about her self-confidence — the sort that have developed as a reflex to be blasé and noncommittal, to seal off vulnerability — and we watch how the events here finally make her experience a little wake-up call that makes her braver, and closer to grown-up. This is really great, because this is how people actually do change, by finally noticing a thing that shows up everywhere you look, and starts to look wrong. Big changes in life really do develop on a theme. Helpfully, this is also how good books are made.
Anyway, the only thing I really ought to have written in this review is that ***THIS BOOK HAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE ENDINGS EVER***. Ever. I love the ending so much! It kicks ass and is perfect in every way, and it makes me so happy and ugh and it makes me cry and laugh and I want to smack something. WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD. This ending seems so effortless, I feel so sorry for other books.
And such a great title, too.
This is a sentimental round-up, surely: I really care personally about every one of this book's themes, and I like this author a lot. Even though I happen to take it really seriously, this book has a very breezy and silly narrative style that somehow guides you through these things. It works on me. I'm super glad.