DNF 45% The idea/setting has potential but I just hate this one character so much that I'm not going to put myself through the rest of it just to find out the ending. He/the author seems to think he's complex and troubled but actually he's just a jerk who mistreats women who inexplicably find it romantic somehow. I also always forget that I don't actually like magical realism, but even without that I wouldn't be enjoying this one.

**Ink** by *Sabrina Vourvoulias* is okay urban dystopic fantasy with a critical stance towards important issues within the US, mostly concerning latinx population and immigration. It touches on these issues beautifully, but came off a bit heavy-handed in many regards – people felt magical, yet one-dimensional. It may just be that I'm at least one major ocean and culture shift removed from the intended audience, though. ( )

More of a 3.75 star. I liked this book, I liked the characters, but I almost wanted more world-building, especially about how ink worked and how the egregious Nazi parallel didn't shut down the idea. I mean, there are plenty of plausible ways to get from there to here, but more of the backstory would have been welcome, especially with so many stories being told at once. ( )

I said while I was reading this book that there were many times I had to close the book (turn off the Kindle) and walk away because it was too possible. I can see the path that leads from the now I live in to the events of this book. I can see it clearly in the proposed laws about identification and education. I can see people and officials desiring a way to mark people permanently, so they and we can never mistake or forget who they are.

The inks in this book--those marked with tattoos denoting their immigration status--are, as they are in this world, Latinos. All Latinos. Even those who are citizens are tattooed, likely so that even they can some day be rounded up. (Notice, every Latino is tattooed. Not every immigrant, every Latino. No matter how many generations back their family came to the US, no matter their legal immigration status. Because it isn't immigration that's the true issue, it's race.)

Something that struck me in particular was a scene where a white man and a Latina woman were discussing proposed ink regulations. She was upset by it, because even though she was a citizen she could see how this harmed her. He commented something along the lines of it is what it is, easily accepting these laws because they didn't directly harm him. This is now. This is institutionalized racism.

I also said once during reading that a certain couple was making me grin like a fool while I was reading about their courtship. The characters in this book feel so real in themselves and in their various relationships. Some are lovers, some friends, some only acquaintances, but all are brought together by this process and all live their lives with it constantly in the background. And that's part of the message: that they keep living their lives, and the fight goes on. ( )

On the whole, I enjoyed Ink, though it was not without its difficulties. In an almost-too-believable future, various classes of persons are tattooed, or inked and this dictates the way they live and how they are treated by the wider society. As the novel progresses, inks suffer more and more indignities and marginalization of their very selves. Some of the characters were sufficiently engaging, and the story sufficiently interesting, to keep me reading until the end.

However, as to the difficulties mentioned above - the combination of politics and magical realism didn’t quite work for me. Sometimes I felt as though the author didn’t know where to really place the emphasis, and this left the book feeling somewhat disjointed. Actually, I think this book might have benefitted from being longer in order to allow some of the themes to be better developed.

Another small issue for me was that the book seemed to focus on just one main group of immigrants, ignoring the many other races that make up the country. Again, this is something that limited the scope of the story for me.

Overall, though, it was an interesting read and I would probably read other books by the author. This one would not get a re-read though.