Inkheart

Cornelia Funke

Meggie and her father never stay anywhere long. It’s not until a mysterious figure visits in the night that Meggie begins to understand why her father never reads aloud to her. It’s all about one book ‘Inkheart’.

Meggie sometimes seems like just a vehicle for the novel to move forward. She starts out naive, gets a little brighter and braver, but in all she’s just a young girl who wants her parents by her side.

This novel is filled with betrayals, and cowardice, and all things good in a fantasy novel. Just like the novel that is contained within it. It’s sort of a story-within-a-story, but you never get the full text of Inkheart.

This also is a movie – and for once I saw the movie before the book. I don’t really remember much about it, but it might be worth a look. I feel like the movie also contained parts of the second novel (and for some reason had a dragon in it??) Anyone remember this better than me?

I listened to this novel, and man it was a long one. So long, in fact, I took a break between listening to the first couple of disks, then another couple, and finally took a very long break when I got near the end.

The problem with this novel, and listening to it I suppose, was that it felt like it was dragging on. It had multiple climaxes that all felt equally important, and so the final confrontation seemed less important. There had been so many near-death experiences before that point, that I couldn’t even feel too upset if anyone died.

I was nagged to read this novel for a long time, and I have at least two copies on my physical shelves. It still didn’t take preference over anything else though. A good novel, but not an amazing one. You need really determination to get through it.

I can’t believe there are two more books in the trilogy. I can’t see myself rushing out to read them, or have them read to me. I think if there had been something more appealing at my library, I would have traded to that soon into this novel. My other two audiobooks I picked up in that set were also failures though, so this was the best of a bad lot.

The writing is flawless, the characters engaging – it just is too long to be a good teenage fiction book.