Blood, Ink & Fire

Ashley Mansour

N/A

Release date :Dec 1, 2015

Rating : 3 Stars

IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT BOOKS…In the future, books are a distant memory. The written word has been replaced by an ever-present stream of images known as Verity. In the controlling dominion of the United Vales of Fell, reading is obsolete and forbidden, and readers themselves do not—cannot—exist.But where others see images in the stream, teenager Noelle Hartley sees words. She’s obsessed with what they mean, where they came from, and why they found her.Noelle’s been keeping her dangerous fixation with words a secret, but on the night before her seventeenth birthday, a rare interruption in the stream leads her to a mysterious volume linked to an underworld of rebel book lovers known as the Nine of the Rising. With the help of the Risers and the beguiling boy Ledger, Noelle discovers that the words within her are precious clues to the books of the earlier time—and as a child of their bookless age, she might be the world’s last hope of bringing them back.Blood, Ink & Fire is a gripping, evocative tale geared to anyone who is passionate about literacy and believes in the power of books. Coming in 2015.

If you would want me to describe my feelings for Blood, Ink & Fire by Ashley Mansour in one line it would be

“Divergent” meets “Fahrenheit 451”

Actually that sounds like a real good book right ?

And I guess some people will think so while reading it. But unfortunately the story lost me when I was about 75% finished. It started out really great and I was totally into the plot.

The characters were amazingly well described so that I had no problem at all to dive right into the plot. The author dumps a lot of information on this well constructed world on the reader but once you get the idea everything falls into place nicely.

And it is this very beginning where I first felt the need to compare it to divergent in some ways.

As the story continues – suddenly the way the story is told changes. Where everything at first was so well developed now suddenly it seems rushed. Even the leading characters love interest’s seem rushed and out of character if you consider the beginning of the book.

It was there when I really felt the dystopian view took over and it felt like a reload of Fahrenheit 451.

Normally I do no read dystopian novels but I wanted to try this due to the subject of books and actually if it had finished in the way it started it would have been a 5 star read no matter the dystopian parts which is saying something believe me.

BUT

Near the end I am sorry to say but the author kind of lost me – and what started out with great potential only ended up confusing me and I am really not sure what to make out of this.I am still rating it with 3 stars even if I feel more 2 stars with it – because of the great idea and fine developed first half…

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