They took my sister.
I’ll take her back.
Release Date: August 6, 2019
Price: $10.99 (paperback)
Plot Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Skye is done playing the knight in shining armor for her insufferable younger sister, Deirdre. And moving across the country seems like the perfect chance to start over as someone different.
In their isolated new neighborhood, Skye manages to fit in, but Deirdre withdraws from everyone, becoming fixated on the swampy woods behind their house and building monstrous sculptures out of sticks and bones.
Then Deirdre disappears.
And when something awful comes scratching at Skye’s window in the middle of the night, claiming Skye’s the only one who can save Deirdre, Skye knows she will stop at nothing to bring her sister home.
Grade: A-
Review:
I’ve waited a week after reading this novel to decide to write a review because I wanted to wait and see if my feelings for this strange little book would remain the same or somehow change. Thing is, I walked into this book thinking that I was getting something like The Blair Witch Project (or at the very least some sort of witchcraft) since it was advertised that way, but instead what I got was a strange tale of childhood monsters and magical kingdoms that come to life in the woods and a missing girl case.
So I’m going to divide this review into two sections: Pros & Cons.
Pros:
I love the dark, atmospheric imagery woven throughout the whole story. It was mighty creepy and rocked in all its dark gothic glory.
The characters reacted to situations in realistic ways (meaning that the characters didn’t give the protagonist Skye a free pass when she shared a very dark secret about her past).
It kept me invested in the story and I really wanted to know what was going to happen next.
Cons:
It wasn’t until halfway through the book that we finally received confirmation that something supernatural was indeed happening.
All the characters were unlikeable, except for William. The protagonist Skye, not only was she unlikeable, but she was also manipulative and had a cruel streak that she justified endlessly and blamed a lot of her actions on her sister.
Dead pets and other animals.
The ending. While it was realistic, it seemed to just end leaving a lot of questions unanswered.
Overall, this was a unique story and I did enjoy it, but I don’t know if it’ll be something that a lot of people could get into unless you’re into dark tales and don’t mind the somewhat slow pacing.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
The Inkblotters 
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