Review: Tattoo (Jennifer Lynn Barnes)

Title: Tattoo

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Genre: Fiction/Youth Lit/Supernatural

Pages: 260
Awards: Booklist, Horn Book, Kirkus Reveiw, Kliatt, School Library Journal
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summary: (from the back of the book) Bailey Morgan isn't the type of girl who shows a lot of skin, but somehow, she ends up in a dressing room at the mall with her friend Delia applying a strange temporary tattoo to the center of her lower back. Never one to suffer fashion doubt, trendsetter Delia knows exactly where she wants her own tattoo: on her stomach. Annabelle, the quiet one, chooses the back of her neck, and tomboy Zo plasters hers on the top of her foot. The tattoos will last for three days, and Delia's sure that with them, the four friends will absolutely kill at the school dance.


Unfortunately, killing is just what someone has in mind, and Bailey, Delia, Annabelle, and Zo are in for the battle of their lives. Along with her tattoo, each girls receives a gift--a supernatural power to help them in their fight. As Bailey's increasingly frightening dreams reveal the true of their enemy, it becomes clear to the girls that it's up to them to save the world. And if they can get Delia to stop using her newfound power to turn a um wrapper into Prada pumps, they might actually stand a chance.

Review:  Temporary tattoos that give people supernatural powers? This just didn't sound like the book for me. However, the book is rotating in and out of my library like crazy and every student (okay, girl) who returns it says it's funny, fun, and good. So I checked it out and read it. And, as you can see from my 4.5 out of 5 rating, I liked it! 


It is funny in parts and a bit scary in others (maybe that's because I was reading it alone in a hotel room at night, maybe not). I enjoyed the friendship among the four girls; Barnes really captured what a close-knit group of girl friends is like when they know which buttons to push but also how to look out for one another. By the time I got to the fairy world and the girls fighting evil, it all seemed okay since it had been building since the beginning. There is a second book in the series, Fate, and I plan on reading it when it arrives in our library. And, yes, I'll let the students check it out first.


I haven't mentioned this in this blog, but in January I am getting one of my (two) tattoos redone. I'll confess that at one point, I thought, "what if when the new work is done, I have some special power...." What would I want it to be? Perhaps patience, or the ability to take things in stride, or superhuman strength.... What power would you want?