Sketch
by Ros Hill
My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Fantasy
Sketch isn’t like other people. For one, he’s a superhero, at least when his powers are working. Also, he’s not really human. He’s a drawing brought to life by ancient magic imbued into a batch of ink. Sketch has been created to stop the Finger Gunman, who is trying to find all of the ink and use it for his own nefarious purposes.
This is a really creative, inventive book, from the ancient Egyptian magic that imbues the ink with the ability to bring some drawings to life to the results of some of those drawings. The story spans centuries, with 2 main stopping points: when Sketch’s creator receives the ink and brings him to life and when Sketch must find a new artist in the hopes of getting his lost superpowers back. The author had some interesting ideas for how to keep the ink, or its creations, from being overpowered. At times, I was a little confused about the limitations, because I don’t think they were conveyed very well to the reader.
The pacing of the book is a little slow at times, but most of the time I was engaged. I have to admit that the villain was a bit underwhelming, though. For one thing, his name, the Finger Gunman, is out of place in this book that is overall pretty serious in nature. It seems better suited for a middle-grade book or a parody story. But besides that, he spends a lot of the book doing very little and then suddenly becomes over-the-top evil near the end.
Overall, the book was enjoyable and unique. Fans of super hero stories and speculative fiction should definitely consider reading this book.
I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Find out more about Sketch
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
