Poison Ink

I picked this book up many years ago when I was in a Christopher Golden fan phase. I finally sat down and read it. It wasn’t all that great; it was a very generic YA thriller that wasn’t all that engaging and was incredibly predictable.

This is a very generic YA thriller about a group of friends who go to get tattoos together. One of the girls, Sammi, chickens out and the other girls start to get increasingly (almost insanely) cruel to her. Sammi then tries to figure out what is going on her friends and links their actions back to the tattoos they got. Sammi then works to solve the mystery behind these tattoos and tries to find a way to save her friends.

The whole thing could have been very dark and edgey but just ended up being kind show more of blah. The characters are all very plain and not all that interesting. The main heroine deals with many typical teenage issues, but in a very shallow way (for example her parents’ marriage is falling apart and she doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere).

It was written okay but kind of boring and predictable despite the subject matter. It could have been done as a really dark and impactful story but it was all just too rushed and not filled out very well. It’s a quick read but not really worth it.

Overall this felt more like a story idea than an actual filled out complete book. Despite a subject and setting that could have been very dark and edgy everything comes out feeling kind of boring and predictable. The book ended up being completely forgettable. I wouldn’t recommend it. show less

Reviewed by JodiG. for TeensReadToo.com

Sammi is one of those girls who doesn't really fit in with any of the groups in high school. She gets along with a lot of people, but not enough that she feels as if she really "belongs" with most of them. She describes herself as a "floater", floating between cliques but never attaching to any one.

TQ, Caryn, Letty, and Katsuko are Sammi's closest allies. They aren't really friends, or even a "group," just bound together by the one thing they have in common - the fact that they don't belong with any other group.

One night, the girls decide to get matching tattoos, as a symbol of their bond. The only place that a group of underage girls can get a tattoo is in a creepy studio run by an even creepier show more tattoo artist named Dante. Dante creates a one-of-a-kind symbol for the girls, one that, he explains, symbolizes strength and friendship, among other things.

The girls eagerly line up for their chance to be bound together. All of them except for Sammi, who worries about the cleanliness of the salon, as well as how her parents would react to her getting a tattoo. Things aren't exactly going smoothly at home and Sammi isn't eager to be the cause of more problems. When her turn arrives, Sammi runs, leaving the other girls feeling betrayed.

Sammi comes up with a plan to atone for the abandonment of her friends. After her plan fails she finds that her former friends are turning on her. Not only have they become bitter and hateful towards her, but Sammi realizes that they have completely changed. Her formerly quiet, "floater" friends are now the most talked about, explosive, aggressive, and cruelest girls in school. They have no regard for anyone else, or themselves.

Sammi can't understand what has caused her friends to change so drastically. When she is assaulted by her former friends she realizes how horrible the situation really is. She catches sight of the tattoo. It has grown and spread across her friend's back.

Now she has to figure out what Dante has done to her friends, and how she can save them.

Christopher Golden has written a book that is a realistic representation of the high school social scene and yet adds a deliciously twisted storyline of how good girls can go bad. POISON INK is fun and intense at the same time and it all leads up to a fantastic final showdown. You won't be disappointed with this one. show less

Sammi is a floater. She has friends in every clique at school, but doesn’t really fit in with any one of them. Her only close friends are four girls just like her. They started hanging out together because they didn’t fit in anywhere else. Just hanging out has turned into four of the strongest friendships Sammi has ever had.Sammi, Caryn, Letty, TQ, and Katsuko are inseparable. One night during a sleepover, the idea of getting a tattoo to represent their bond to each other develops. Immediately they are all excited - except for Sammi. She knows her parents wouldn’t approve and with them teetering on the edge of divorce already, she doesn’t want to give them anything else to fight about. Sammi hopes the idea of the tattoo just show more falls by the wayside and eventually is forgotten. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.Together they come up with a plan to get out of the house and go to a tattoo shop close to Letty’s house. The creepy tattoo artist doesn’t ask to see their IDs and they all start to plan where they will place their tattoo. Each girl chooses a different location, but all will have the exact same design. After all of her friends have already been tattooed, Sammi decides she can’t go through with it.Immediately, Sammi is shunned and becomes on outcast in her group. They even go so far as to defriend her on her Instant Messaging Buddy List. Soon after the application of the tattoos, Sammi notices a change in TQ, Caryn, Letty, and Katsuko for the worse. They become violent, promiscuous, and horribly mean. In the middle of a fight that lands Sammi in the hospital, she spots the tattoos on her friends’ skin and sees that they have changed. Tendrils have started to emerge and cover more of their bodies. Sammi realizes something sinister is going on and that the creepy tattoo artist must be behind it. She decides to find a way to save her friends and get them out from under the control of the poisoned tattoos. show less

If I had to describe this book with one word, it would be tense. This certainly isn’t a light read for the faint of heart, though it is a quick read. Even though the book is for Young Adults, I enjoyed it until the last page and I’m a full adult :)

The author does a terrific job of getting the reader comfortable with the main character Sammi's life in a short time-which is a sign of a good book to me. The reader feels like you're a part of her life going through an insane (blissfully fictional) month.

Sammi is a high school junior who has a close group of girlfriends. When the five of them decide to get an original tattoo to show their bond to each other, Sammi isn't sure that she wants to do it, but she can't figure out a way to tell the girls. At the last moment, after the other four already have their tattoos, Sammi backs out of the deal and runs out of the store. Shortly afterward, the four girls undergo massive character changes, and Sammi ends up being beat up quite severely by her previous friends when she attempts to intervene in a fight between them and the Las Reinas, a Puerto Rican gang. When Sammi figures out that the ink used in the tattoo has poisoned the girls and made them puppets of Dante, the tattoo artist. She is show more determined to rescue her friends, but at what cost.
Due to the language, I've donated my copy of the book to my local high school rather than put it in the middle school library, but it's an enjoyable read for those who like thrillers. show less

Sammi and her friends have always been outcasts, that's why they seem to fit together so well. They all decide one day to get tattoos, the same tattoo to bond them as friends forever. Letty knows of a tattoo parlor that always seems to be open, and is in the wrong part of town. When they go down to the tattoo parlor Dante, the tattoo artist, draws a design just for them. It is made up of a hollow circle in the center, signifying the world, with five waves surrounding it--five waves for the five friends being bonded together. But Sammi gets scared and backs out at the last minute--after everyone else had gotten theirs done. They feel betrayed and they exile Sammi, but that's not all. They become very mean and start acting differently show more than they used to, drastically different. This leaves Sammi wondering what's going on with them, could they really change this much overnight, or are the tattoos poisoning them?

This book had just the right balance of supernatural and real life. The book was fun and original, although it did have a bit of gore towards the end. The characters were really diverse, it was like it was taking place in a real, modern, American town. The ending wasn't my favorite, but it seemed to fit the book and characters. All in all this book was pretty good, but the ending could have been a little longer to wrapped things up better. show less

Due to the very high school aspect of this book, I skimmed a bit of it. I really wish they had played up the supernatural part of it more, instead of leading up to it slowly. It was only in the last third of the book that any real action happens and when it does you want more. I'd almost like to read a sequel to see what may happen and hope for a more intense plot line.