Review: Indelible by Dawn Metcalf

Indelible (The Twixt #1)

By Dawn Metcalf

Publisher: Harlequin TEEN

Released: July 30, 2013

Paperback, 384 pages

Source: NetGalley 

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 -- Goodreads

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 3 Stars

Review:

Paranormal has almost become a washed out genre within the YA world due to the inundation of them post-Twilight years. Now, it is probably impossible to find one in the midst of the new dystopian-fantasy rage. However, in spite of all of these drawbacks, Indelible has reminded us of the fun in paranormals: the budding cross-species love (this sounds so inappropriate >_<), the ever adorable family of paranormal creatures, and the adorkable mishaps.

Indelible follows the adventures of Joy and Ink, who are brought together by the most unfortunate of circumstances. When Ink discovers Joy has the power to see him and his sister, he idiotically decides the "best" method of dealing with Joy: blinding her with his knife. In a somewhat cynical happening of events, Joy and Ink end up faking boyfriend and girlfriend to prevent Ink from being punished for inadvertently marking Joy with his little signature when he assaulted her.

Honestly, these events are hard to decipher. On one hand, I found this book hilarious because of the ridiculousness of it all. Faking girlfriend and boyfriend? Almost killing someone, but ending up having her follow you everywhere? Ha. Too bad, this book seemed to take itself incredibly seriously, to the point where it was difficult to be sure whether this was a comedy or a grand scale adventure. In reality, Indelible is most likely one of those more serious novels out there.

The only major problem that was aggravating was the flow of the novel. For some reason, Indelible never followed an explicit plot. Rather than a cumulation of events, Indelible was more of a series of events that felt disjointed when put together. There are villains and battles throughout the story, but the book does not truly follow the blurb given to us. The book claims that the main focus is Joy helping Ink out while faking being in love with him, but the book mainly consisted of Ink teleporting Joy around the world. Only until the last fifty pages does the book begin seriously focusing on the main villain, causing the climax and ending to feel rushed and rather incomplete. 

The characters of Indelible are undeniably the most entertaining of all paranormals. From the snarky protector Ink to the flamboyant party-goer Inq, there is always a character that will please the crowd. Joy was a strong female heroine, but did not have any extraordinary characteristics. Yet this fact let her stand out among the crazy magical creatures of Indelible. If only more paranormals had this many fun characters to hang out with...

Indelible was probably one of only a handful paranormals released for good reason. With a unique concept of tattoos marking you, the world was intriguing and fascinating to visit. There could have been some more world-developing because some details are still a little fuzzy. Regardless, Indelible is a cute read if you want to revisit the old paranormal days.