“Just another Friday afternoon trip to the mall.
We totally should have known better.”

When fifteen-year-old Bailey and her three closest friends hit the mall every Friday, they expect the same old routine: Delia will swoon over new cosmetics and clothes, Zo will act as if shopping is torture, but gladly visit the food court, Zo’s cousin Annabelle will quietly take everything in, and maybe, just maybe, Bailey will run into her longtime crush, Kane.

On this particular Friday, everything seems normal until the girls meet a saleswoman at a booth. The mysterious woman finds the perfect accessory for three of them: a metal choker for Delia; a crystal on a chain for Zo; and a hair barrette for Annabelle. Bailey, she says, must select something for herself. As she looks through the accessories, she accidentally knocks open a drawer, spilling its contents. What looks like a piece of paper catches her eye. It turns out to be a packet of temporary tattoos, and, encouraged by Delia, that’s what she buys.

A short while later, while the girls are trying on clothes and discussing the big dance on Monday, they divvy up the tattoos. As soon as Bailey’s tattoo makes contact with her skin, she feels a chill, then heat, as colors swirl and voices chant in her mind. She briefly passes out.

At first, her friends seem to have no adverse reactions to the tattoos. However, it soon becomes apparent that each girl has obtained a supernatural gift which is somewhat related to her personality and the placement of her tattoo. Introspective Annabelle, with her tattoo on the back of her neck, now has the power of mind control. Emotional Bailey, marked on her lower back, can conjure and manipulate fire – also known as pyrokinesis. Sassy fashionista Delia, boldly displaying her tattoo on her midriff, can transmogrify objects, reshaping them and making them into other things. Tomboy Zo, her best (tattooed) foot forward, starts having visions of the future.

The situation quickly becomes serious. The strange voices keep repeating foreboding words in Bailey’s mind, speaking of the Blood of the Sidhe. That weekend, as the girls continue to experiment with their powers and research the Sidhe, Bailey’s dreams turn to nightmares. The voices warn her that She is coming. But who is She, and what does She want?

When an uninvited evil crashes the school dance on Monday night, the loyalty, intelligence, ingenuity, and strength of all four girls will be tested. The tattoos and powers may or may not be temporary, but it is their friendship that must last in order for them to survive.

Worthy of a sequel, I recommend Tattoo by Jennifer Lynn Barnes to teens and adults who like contemporary supernatural thrillers that utilize ancient myths and give ordinary teens extraordinary powers.

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TATTOO tells the story of four friends, Bailey, Delia, Annabelle, and Zo, who pick up temporary tattoos at the mall one afternoon. Despite the protests of tomboy Zo, the girls they put them on to show off at the big upcoming school dance, and from the moment the tattoos make contact with their skin, everything changes, and the girls are finding themselves with new and unexpected abilities: pirokinesis, transmogrification, mind control, and premonition. At first their powers seem like fun, especially to fashionista Delia, who loves the fact that she can now change the color of her nails on a whim, but it doesn’t take long for the girls to realize that their newfound powers also come with new responsibilities, namely a great evil that essentially wants to destroy the world. It may seem a little cliché that at this point the girls of course realize that only they can save the day and restore the balance of the universe in time for the school dance, but it doesn’t read that way. The girls are smart, sassy, and loveable, and each girl’s personality is distinct and well-developed. The supernatural plotline is also done well, and the fairy world and ancient mythos is intertwined perfectly with the present day. Perhaps most impressively for a young adult novel, it’s not totally predictable, and it’s these fun surprises as well as the little details that Barnes writes so well that make this novel definitely worth a read.

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