Inkheart

Reviewer: Kelsey
Author: Cornelia Funke
Pages: 548
Format: Paperback
My rating: 7 out of 10

Summary (from GoodReads): Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

Characters from books literally leap off the page in this engrossing fantasy. Meggie has had her father to herself since her mother went away when she was young. Mo taught her to read when she was five, and the two share a mutual love of books. He can "read" characters out of books. When she was three, he read aloud from a book called Inkheart and released characters into the real world. At the same time, Meggie's mother disappeared into the story. This "story within a story" will delight not just fantasy fans, but all readers who like an exciting plot with larger-than-life characters.

My Take: I really liked this book. I felt as though I was a little old for it however. The concept and storyline were interesting and had enough twists to keep me interested. It also had enough background story on each of the characters so that I never felt lost or confused as to why a character was acting a certain way or making a certain choice. I don't like being lost and this book made sure that I never was.

As I said, I think the concept of this story was interesting. I would have never come up with something like this one my own. It's very creative. I loved it. I used to think that it would be really nice to get to live in some of my favourite stories but now I just want to make sure that my stories stay on their page and that's it.

Also, the characters are really something. I suppose that for this story, they need to be interesting and different. Each was described to that I got a perfect picture in my head. My favourite character, even though he makes many bad choices, is Dustfinger. I don't know why I like him so much, maybe it's the mystery behind him that I'm drawn to. There was one small character flaw that I found: I picture Meggie as much, much older. I think it makes more sense that way so while I read I just ignored her stated age and picked my own for her...shhhh!

I was very dissappointed with the ending. I won't spoil anything but I do want to say that I felt that it was unfinished. I felt like something was missing and it was all left undone. I think that the novel could have kept going for a little bit longer but even as I say that, I don't know if I would have been able to hold on much longer. The novel was already a very long book. I am aware that there are two other books that follow this one but I haven't had the time to read them just yet. Maybe I'll get around to them sometime soon.

My final thoughts: I would recommend this novel to children between the ages of 10 and fourteen or fifteen. They'll love the fairy tale of it. I know I did but then again I'm really just a big child at heart. These children that I recommend this book too need to be able to stick with it all the way to the end though! I hate not finishing books.

P.S.: This novel has a movie, like many other novels do. I really liked the ending in the movie. I liked it a lot more actually so if you read this and don't feel satisfied yet, check it out!