How hard do you have to shake the family tree to find the truth about the past?
Fifteen year-old Rae Kerrigan never really knew her family's history. Her mother and father died when she was young and it is only when she accepts a scholarship to the prestigious Guilder Boarding School in England that a mysterious family secret is revealed.
Will the sins of the father be the sins of the daughter?
As Rae struggles with new friends, a new school and a star-struck forbidden love, she must also face the ultimate challenge: receive a tattoo on her sixteenth birthday with specific powers that may bind her to an unspeakable darkness. It's up to Rae to undo the dark evil in her family's past and have a ray of hope for her future.
MY THOUGHTS
I downloaded this book as a freebie ages ago because it sounded interesting and I figured why not? It was free. Sadly, I did not enjoy this book. I had to force myself to finish this book because I had already DNF-ed another freebie this week and I didn't want another DNF. My feelings towards this book did not change as I continued reading. Needless to say, this will not be a positive review. I don't like writing negative reviews, and I don't write negative reviews often, but I need to review this book for a challenge and get out some of my emotions.
Rae gets a mysterious letter from Guilder Boarding School. Her Uncle sends her to the mysterious school and she finds out that everyone at the school is part of a special group of people who have supernatural abilities. At the age of sixteen, a tattoo (or tatu) magically appears on the individual's body along with a special power. The tatu appears on the arm if it is a male and on the lower back if it is a female (because it is "sexier"). Rae is reeling because her Uncle has kept this secret from her for so long. It doesn't help that people expect her to be just like her father, who died with her mother in a mysterious fire (Rae was the miraculous survivor). Rae's father used his ability for evil and her mother also had a tatu, even though it is forbidden for two individuals with a tatu to be together. Guilder expects Rae to be extremely powerful, but Rae must wait until she turns sixteen.
It's obvious from the synopsis that this book has some Harry Potter similarities.
-Rae is an orphan
-She is essentially the girl-who-lived, surviving a tragedy that took her parents
-She is expected to have great power and her name makes people gasp
-She gets a mysterious letter from a boarding school in England
-She is told that she is a
-She has a headmaster she confides in and trusts
-A teacher who hates her for no reason
If you took Harry Potter and made him female and his father Voldemort, it would follow a similar plot (but would be a lot better than this). The thing is, even though the plot obviously borrows from Harry Potter, this book could have been interesting. The concept of the tattoos/tatu was an interesting one, especially with the combination of superpowers. I love reading books with superpowers and I liked seeing all the potential abilities. When Rae discovered her ability, I thought that that was one of the more interesting parts of the book (even though I guessed the full extent of her ability early on). There was just too much that bothered me about this book though.
A big problem I had with this book was that I just did not care for Rae. Rae was very judgemental and I had trouble identifying with her. The book was oddly written in the first place because everything is in third person, following Rae, but a majority of the book glimpses her inner thoughts which are italicized. This made it an odd mix of third and first person and very annoying, especially since most of these inner thoughts were not necessary to know. Some of these thoughts were very mean for someone I was supposed to be rooting for.
Very early on in the book, Rae comments on the "stuck-up" girls on the bus on the way to Guilder. These girls don't even talk to her, whisper, or whatever. They just weren't friendly and, here's the kicker, they were blonde. Rae also says that they weren't thin, pale, and tall like her (because Rae is not like other girls!). Which means that the girls were likely curvy, tan, and/or short and because of those attributes, they must be snobs! Here's a newsflash: They weren't "friendly" to you probably because you're a stranger? Who isn't even going to your school? I know I'm focusing a lot on this little moment, but this happens again when she meets Haley, who, you guessed it, is blonde. Haley ends up being a mean girl in Rae's mind. Yes, Haley is not exactly nice, but if Rae actually talked nicely with Haley, this would not have been a problem. Rae's thoughts about other women and her idea that she was "not like other girls" is a really damaging idea. It's a trope that really hurts women and causes them to, very early on, think bad thoughts about other girls just because of their looks or interests. If you want to hear more about it, Claudia Gray wrote a great article about how damaging this idea is. This is one of the reasons why I was very stuck on how Rae was portrayed because it shows a very negative few on how women think and how they interact with other women.
What really made me scream "What?!" out loud was this:
"Yeah, Rae'd like to meet this Beth and throw rotten bananas at her, along with a few moldy tomatoes. Might as well make sure she's wearing something white and very expensive so it ruins everything."(pg. 88)WHAT IN THE WORLD?! For context, this is about Beth, a girl Rae has never ever met. Beth is Devon's (the guy Rae likes) girlfriend. Yeah, Rae wants Devons, but this seems like an incredibly mean thing to think about someone you've never meet and know absolutely nothing about. She also thinks that Beth is a jerk and doesn't deserve Devon because she called Devon's fox tattoo/tatu "cute". That's a jerk move? Eventually, Rae meets Beth and... the blondes strike again! Beth is blonde, curvy, and "olive-skinned". Oh no! Beth is not nice to Rae (because she shows up all hot and Devon is paying attention to her) and actually says to Rae that she must have gotten into her school because one of her parents slept with the dean! WHAT?! Who even says that to a complete stranger to start a conversation? Of course, the only reason this happened was so we would see that Rae was right! Beth is mean and doesn't deserve Devon. That was the ONLY reason for this ridiculous dialogue and there were much better ways to show the reader this. Again, it shows a very negative view of women.
Another major problem I had in this book was that no one talks or acts like a real person. None of the dialogue sounded real and a lot of folk's actions made no sense. Keep in mind, this book takes place in England but everyone uses American slang. Everyone felt like a stereotype instead of a real person. There were so many characters to keep track of too and because many of them did not have strong personalities, they were forgettable and I kept mixing people up.
The romance was also an issue. If the plot was like Harry Potter, the romance was like Twilight. Rae is so hot that every guy at her school literally wants to be with her. This is not an exaggeration, it is even said in the actual text. Three or four guys were even trying to date her throughout the book (all of them having interchangeable personalities). Why though? What made Rae so hot? This started before she even got her tatu when people still thought that she was going to be like her evil dad. Is it because she is just "not like other girls"? I'm just so tired of this trope. It just needs to stop.
Rae, of course, wants Devon who has a girlfriend and I honestly saw no chemistry between them. It was complete insta-attraction on Rae's part. Devon saves Rae from irresponsible construction workers and a board from crushing her (What book does that remind you of?). Devon then tutors Rae by teaching her about tatu history, but I really didn't see anything between them. Partly because during three different sessions, they talk about almost the exact same thing. Rae asks him three times about what tatus her parents have and he answers her during three different sessions. There really did not seem to be chemistry, which made any romance between them feel forced.
IN CONCLUSION
Overall, I did not like this book. Maybe it's another book I would have liked if I read it when I was younger, but I don't know. I just could not ignore some of the problems this book had, some I even found damaging. I will not be continuing the series.
I hereby give this book
1 Star
Meaning: I did not like it
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