Description:
Sammi, TQ, Caryn, Letty, and Katsuko are floaters. They don’t fit in with any of the groups at Covington High School – just with each other. One night, to cement their bond, the girls decide to get matching tattoos. But when Sammi backs out at the last minute – worried about her parents’ reaction and unnerved by the creepy place they’re forced to go because they don’t have IDs – everything changes.
Faster than you can say “airbrush,” Sammi is an outcast and her friends are behaving like total strangers. They smoke, skip school, fight, taunt, and are the subjects of some of the juiciest rumors Covington High has ever heard. When they attack Sammi for trying to break up a brawl, Sammi swears she spies something horrible on her friend’s back: the original tattoo has grown tendrils, snaking over the girl’s entire body. What has that creepy tattoo artist done to her friends? And what, if anything, can Sammi do to get them back?
Poison Ink is an excellent YA paranormal thriller. It adds just the right touch of creepiness to a realistic portrayal of the high school social scene. The characters were well developed and they all had their own unique personalities, which makes them easy to relate to.
When Sammi’s friends go through a strange transformation, it would have been easy for her to move on and let the friendship go. Instead she takes risks to discover what exactly happened the night they got the strange symbols inked, because she has faith in her friends. She soon learns the truth, and it’s totally twisted. The fast-paced suspense leads up to her final showdown with the artist/magician Dante, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Poison Ink was a lot of fun. Definitely check it out for a great Halloween read!
4 1/2 out of 5 stars – creepy fun