I’m joining the discussion late because I just finished the book. I love this group because it gets me to read things I wouldn’t pick up otherwise (my favorites are historical fiction and nonfiction), and this is a perfect example. I liked the writing, and I didn’t hate it, but I agree totally with @VeryHappy.
I loved the Antarctica scenes with Esther and Pearl; their relationship would have made a great story. The sister storyline was interesting, too. But when the book got away from the people into the convoluted magic rules it lost me.
To answer @mathmom: No, I didn’t much like fantasy as a child, either! I’ve never wanted to read Narnia or Tolkien. And one Harry Potter book was enough for me–my husband read the rest to our kids, and my sister happily took them to the movies!
There are some mythological references in Ink Blood Sister Scribe, but the one I kept thinking of was actually a modern re-telling of Orpheus and Eurydice – Jean Cocteau’s Orphée. The characters travel through mirrors in that version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYx9SIJkpYY
I saw this quote from the movie when looking on IMDB. Interesting that there’s a bee / hive reference, since the sound is such a daily part of Joanna and Collins’ life:
I am letting you into the secret of all secrets, mirrors are gates through which death comes and goes. Moreover if you see your whole life in a mirror you will see death at work as you see bees behind the glass in a hive.
When the movie is made of this book, the mirror scenes will look exactly like the link you posted @Mary13. Maybe all “going through the mirrors are described like this” but that was exactly how I visualized the mirror transport.
The reference to bees behind the hive can’t be just a coincidence - the bullets changing to bees !
Clearly, The author is familiar with myths, and that movie
I wondered about the process of using blood for ink (and I discovered that a lot of people online also wonder about that, which is slightly disturbing ).
It’s actually an ancient practice – “blood was the simplest and most immediate way to obtain a red substance to write with,” either on its own or, more commonly, mixed with iron gall ink for a rich, dark color. But animal blood was sufficient for this recipe – using human blood as ink generally came into play only for either magical or religious texts. And lest you think I’m talking about the olden days, here’s a 21st century example:
Here’s another passage from the book that gave me a chuckle:
Every Library book had an “expiration date,” a rechargeable spell dating back to the late twentieth century that had been affixed to each title in the collection and was added to every new book as soon as Nicholas had written it, in the form of a small, embossed symbol of a book on the back page. It was in fact a tracking spell that was automatically activated in the event a book had not been returned to the Library after the forty-eight hour lending period was over (p. 102).
We call that a Kindle around these parts. I’ve been trying to outsmart that tracking spell for years.
Maram saves Esther not only with travel out of Antartica but also with the young lady at the airport who conveniently saves Esther by knocking on the door just in time to stop Trev from shooting her. It occurs to me that much of the same happens earlier in Mexico City when Esther overstays her allotted time. Someone interrupts Esther’s abduction by forcefully knocking on the door. It just occurred to me that Maram intervened there also.
For what it’s worth, we haven’t discussed all the secrets swirling through the story. Take Richard, though evil, immortality is a pretty big incentive at least for him. It seems less so for Maram and secrets start unraveling.
Abe’s secretiveness: As @Mary13 pointed out earlier, he probably justified it to himself saying it protects his girls but more likely protected his books.
I’ve wondered why Cecily agreed to a magic NDA. Probably it started when she worked as the nanny and then she couldn’t get past it.
Even Esther … no NDA yet she lived a life of secretiveness.
Only Joanna seems immune and her openness is reflected in her face and overall being.
I liked Edward Eager’s books but they were too short and easy to read! I think I found his books after reading E. Nesbit. (Who he acknowledges was a big influence.)
Richard keeps secrets from one and all. Maram knows many, maybe even most, but I doubt all.
Maram keeps secrets from Richard, Nicholas, Collins, Esther, and later Joanna. Richard can’t have even known that once upon a time Isabel lived and became Maram.
Collins - NDA so secrets from his family and Nicholas and later Joanna and Esther.
Abe - keeps secrets from his girls - major ones
Cecily - NDA, so secrets from her daughters
Esther - secrets from Joanna and all those she meets in her journey through life.
Did I miss anyone?
Maram starts the process of unraveling the secrets when she protects Esther and Nicholas. I’m not sure that’s quite right though as Richard unknowingly starts the process of unraveling when he goes after Esther as scribe. Maram draws a line, protecting Esther and, I believe, Nicholas. Like Cecily, she seems to say “enough.”
I think the secrets Esther keeps from Pearl deserve specific notice (I know they can be lumped under “all others she meets” but they feel bigger given her feelings for Pearl)
The secrets seem to fall into three general categories – those kept with good intent (e.g., Esther’s secrets from Pearl), those kept with evil intent (e.g., Richard), those kept because it is physically impossible to reveal them (NDAs).
Maybe there’s a fourth category – self-serving secrets: “Secrets were currency and Isabel intended to stay rich” (p. 370).
And of course, there are secret rooms and secret passageways!
Significantly, Esther’s first spell takes place in the truck – the one place, Joanna notes (p. 38), that the sisters never kept secrets from one another.
Speaking of mirrors was anyone bothered when Esther says that the pangram can be read either way in the mirror, ignoring that in the mirror letters will be backwards?!
Also can scribes only destroy vampire books? Because if Esther is a scribe why can’t she destroy the book her father gives her as a test. A test of what exactly?
Wow @mathmom, that never would have occurred to me, not in a million years. I was only thinking that the order of the letters would be correct in the mirror, forgetting that each individual letter would be backward.
…it was the Spanish title she’d gotten tattooed across her collarbones several months later: “la ruta nos aportó” on the right, “otro paso natural” on the left. A palindrome and thus readable in the mirror (p.17).
Instead of focusing on her favorite book, Esther should have gotten herself a decent car and had A TOYOTA tattooed across her collarbones. That would have worked in the mirror.
Abe doesn’t give her just any book to destroy – he gives her Richard’s human-skin life-book, in hopes of putting an end to him. However, “The book had been written by two Scribes. Two Scribes were needed to destroy it” (p.327). That’s why Esther can’t tear it up.
Nicholas can’t destroy that particular kind of book either, right? I’ll have to go back and look but I seem to remember him frantically trying. Collins calmed him down.
Correct. In that case, Nicholas is trying to destroy the book with the Scribe-seeking spell. He’s just found his eyeball in a jar and the book on Richard’s desk and is understandably upset, to put it mildly. But when he can’t destroy the book, he realizes that it was written by two Scribes. He deduces this because the book is so thick, meaning it required so much blood to write that two Scribes had to have died completing the task.
(I’m not sure if it’s ever said, but that means a spell book has to be written in one sitting. A Scribe can’t start it, wait a few weeks until his blood count improves and then resume the work.)
I knew it disappointed Abe and Cecily when Esther can’t destroy the book. Of course, at that point, I assumed - as does Esther - that means she has no magical ability. Esther only knows she disappointed Abe and Cecily. It still makes me wonder why Abe just didn’t tell her what he suspects about her, but that episode also shows that Abe himself lacks complete understanding of some of the magic. Touching the vampire book ungloved shows that too. Richard, of course, knows all.
*I did figure out Esther is a scribe once Nicholas enters the picture and magic doesn’t affect him. He also couldn’t destroy a particular two-scribe book.
).
I’ve been trying to outsmart that tracking spell for years.