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A review by thebooknerdscorner
Inked in Blood and Memory by Allison Ivy
4.0
Two girls race to escape from the horror novel that they are trapped in before the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Day in this exciting sapphic fantasy horror novel.
Sophie Vanguard has spent her days holed up in her cozy cabin just the way she likes it. That is, until a mysterious girl appears on her doorstep claiming to be Sophie's childhood best friend. Ly Thi Ren bursts into Sophie's life claiming that they are both trapped inside a horror novel, and they only have a couple of hours to escape if they want a chance to escape the people that trapped them inside the insidious book in the first place.
The first couple of chapters had me a bit confused about what in the world was happening, but I soon found myself understanding the complicated cult that Sophie and Ren are trapped in and the various things that it entailed. Right away I was a bit thrown off by how nonlinear this book was in changing perspectives and jumping through time, but I soon found myself absorbed in the world and frantically turning pages to see what happened next.
Humanity tends to be drawn to the occult and find cults quite interesting, and I am certainly no exception. In this book, three families worship a demon who requires children to be sacrificed to it and traps people in books. People's devotion to cults is always so intriguing to me and time after time it shocks me that people genuinely believe that they are doing the right thing.
The majority of this book features Sophie and Ren trying to escape from the horror novel that they are stuck inside. These two have to face many different foes such as zombies, stalkers, killer teddy bears, and even alt versions of each other. Every obstacle that they faced raised the stakes and got me even more excited to see how this book would climax.
I also really appreciated the relationship between Sophie and Ren. I appreciate that they have been friends forever and that they have a complicated relation with the third member of their trio, Jeremy. The romance elements in this book weren't suffocating, but they did a great job of adding a little more lightness to this dark novel.
The ending was also very satisfying. The allusions on the last page were truly golden and they had me giggling. Getting a bit of resolution from the cult was also much appreciated and as a reader, I was left with a ton of hope for the future.
Before I end this review, I want to comment on how pretty this book is. It was self-published, which allowed the author to adorn it with some pretty cool designs. From the end pages, to the chapter headers, to the random images scattered throughout the book, this novel is filled with pretty illustrations that accompany the book wonderfully.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with "Inked in Blood and Memory." As a reader, the concept of getting stuck inside a book was really fun and I found the fact that the majority of this story revolved around a cult made it quite interesting. The thriller-esque nature of this book was also nailed quite wonderfully. The fact that this book was told in so many perspectives also added to the creepy nature of this novel. I would be quite intrigued to see what else Ivy has penned, because I found this book to be unique, creepy, and filled to the brim with thrilling moments that kept me rapidly turning the pages.
Sophie Vanguard has spent her days holed up in her cozy cabin just the way she likes it. That is, until a mysterious girl appears on her doorstep claiming to be Sophie's childhood best friend. Ly Thi Ren bursts into Sophie's life claiming that they are both trapped inside a horror novel, and they only have a couple of hours to escape if they want a chance to escape the people that trapped them inside the insidious book in the first place.
The first couple of chapters had me a bit confused about what in the world was happening, but I soon found myself understanding the complicated cult that Sophie and Ren are trapped in and the various things that it entailed. Right away I was a bit thrown off by how nonlinear this book was in changing perspectives and jumping through time, but I soon found myself absorbed in the world and frantically turning pages to see what happened next.
Humanity tends to be drawn to the occult and find cults quite interesting, and I am certainly no exception. In this book, three families worship a demon who requires children to be sacrificed to it and traps people in books. People's devotion to cults is always so intriguing to me and time after time it shocks me that people genuinely believe that they are doing the right thing.
The majority of this book features Sophie and Ren trying to escape from the horror novel that they are stuck inside. These two have to face many different foes such as zombies, stalkers, killer teddy bears, and even alt versions of each other. Every obstacle that they faced raised the stakes and got me even more excited to see how this book would climax.
I also really appreciated the relationship between Sophie and Ren. I appreciate that they have been friends forever and that they have a complicated relation with the third member of their trio, Jeremy. The romance elements in this book weren't suffocating, but they did a great job of adding a little more lightness to this dark novel.
The ending was also very satisfying. The allusions on the last page were truly golden and they had me giggling. Getting a bit of resolution from the cult was also much appreciated and as a reader, I was left with a ton of hope for the future.
Before I end this review, I want to comment on how pretty this book is. It was self-published, which allowed the author to adorn it with some pretty cool designs. From the end pages, to the chapter headers, to the random images scattered throughout the book, this novel is filled with pretty illustrations that accompany the book wonderfully.
Overall, I really enjoyed my time with "Inked in Blood and Memory." As a reader, the concept of getting stuck inside a book was really fun and I found the fact that the majority of this story revolved around a cult made it quite interesting. The thriller-esque nature of this book was also nailed quite wonderfully. The fact that this book was told in so many perspectives also added to the creepy nature of this novel. I would be quite intrigued to see what else Ivy has penned, because I found this book to be unique, creepy, and filled to the brim with thrilling moments that kept me rapidly turning the pages.