I read this book as a buddy read with a friend and also to push this series through on my series-a-thon for this year. This is a Middle Grade to YA book. I thought this would have been a lot better had it been written as an adult novel. I thought it had an adult feel to it, but since it is intended for younger audiences it was pretty tame. Even though I thought that so much more could have been done with it as an adult novel, it was still very engaging.In this book we have Meggie and her father, Mo who absolutely loves books. Mo is a book binder and he restores old books back to how they first were. Mo is a different type of father, when he reads aloud, he pulls characters and/or objects out of the story he is reading, but that's not all he also could possibly lose someone into the that same story. Things go awry, so Meggie and her father are in for an adventure to make things right and reclaim someone they had lost.I absolutely loved the plotline of this story. A modern day world with fairy tale characters coming alive by being read out of a book. I have never heard of a plotline quite like this one. I love it's originality and uniqueness. Something that bothered me about this book was the synopsis. I found that is really could have been a spoiler to the story because what you read in the synopsis does not really happen in the book. Readers get a vague description of it, and it also made me think about how a prequel would be beneficiary to this series. I know I would definitely read it if it were to ever be written. I also really loved the world that was built here even though it is just modern day, the other fairy tale elements really jazzed it up and made it exciting.The characters in this book were brilliant, a lot to love and a lot to hate. I can really see them developing a lot throughout the series and I hope to see some of them become a bit stronger. I felt like Dustfinger, who is one of my favorite characters, was not as strong as I would I have liked him to be. I can picture him as a total hero if he showed a little more strength. So I am hoping he develops more throughout the series. I also enjoy Meggie a lot. I can see her as a hero also and I find that she is a very strong character. She is easy to relate to even though she is only 12 she uses her fear to strengthen her. One small thing that bothered me about Meggie was that she called her dad Mo instead of Dad. That was a little annoying to me. Most of these characters are very believable and I loved that.I recommend this book to anyone who likes something a little different, a YA novel with a little fantasy, a little mystery and a lot of other great elements. Even if you are not huge on either of those genres, I think you could enjoy this book. I am looking forward to the rest of the series with Inkspell and Inkdeath.
I was very much looking forward to reading this, as it had very good word-of-mouth as a high-quality children's/YA fantasy that adults will also enjoy. And the premise, that characters can exist in the "real world" outside of books, or that real people can enter the world inside a book, is endlessly appealing. However, my local library is on the verge of opening a new wing with my overdue book fines on this, because I keep hanging onto it in the hope that eventually I will be able to finish reading it.I think it's just not going to happen. First of all, there is something very stilted and anachronistic in the writing, and I can't tell whether that's just Cornelia Funke, or a result of the translation work. Also, the book is simply too long. It takes 150 pages for anything to begin to happen, and that's much too long, even for an adult book. I blame J.K. Rowling for this kind of bloating.Finally, I'm extremely annoyed by people, whether real or fictional, who pat themselves on the back for loving books. People have loved books for as long as there have been books, and even before books, people loved storytelling and drama. You're not a special kind of intellect for loving books and wordplay. The people in Inkheart are paraded before us as people with an extra special super duper love of books that is so powerful that they can cause the boundary between books and reality to melt. But just carrying around favorite books in a little trunk and bragging you've loved books since you were a baby and could read before you could talk and so forth isn't particularly magical or distinctive or worthy of praise, and I got tired pretty quickly of Meggie and her father and aunt and their extreme reverence for books. Capping it off is Funke's annoying habit of using an epigram from other (mostly fantasy) books for each chapter. If she found those inspiring, fine, stick them on your bulletin board while writing. But they were yet more reason to jump out of the story, rather than having it propel along.
What do You think about Inkheart (2005)?
Hoo boy did I love this novel. Firstly, it's a book about books and the people who love them. You really can't go wrong starting from there. For a young adult novel, it has several interesting quirks. Maybe it's because I'm used to reading about American and British heroes and heroines in my YA novels, and this book is translated from the German, but it was a nice change to have a different setting ... from what I could tell, this book takes place mostly in Italy.And it avoids many of the conventions of most YA novels (young person is an orphan or has at least one dead parent, any living parent has no idea what's going on with young person, and certainly that parent has no concept of whatever magical things are occurring). Although Meggie, the 12-year-old protagonist, lives with her father, and her mother is "gone," her father is a huge part of the story. He's not a vague presence who has to be gotten around ... he's integral to the plot. Without giving anything away, Mo, the father, is the reason the whole story happens.And this book is SCARY. The bad guys are really bad. There are guns and knives involved, and people die. I was tense most of the time I was reading, and sometimes reluctant to keep reading ... it took me an entire week to finish, which is a LONG time for me. I don't know that kids younger than their mid-teens should be reading this book.If you're looking for a change from the Harry Potter mold, this is the book for you. I'm looking forward to the second installment ... Inkspell.
—Michelle
I've always imagined what it would be like if the characters from the books I've read, especially those who I like so much, are really alive, flesh and blood and I can enter their world. Like Alice in the Wonderland. Or Harry Potter, oh I'd do anything to enter Hogwarts. I was destined to be a Ravenclaw student! But Funke offers more than that, what if there's very special people who able to call out characters from books. Who can bring them across the unknown border to our world. If you expected something great well you have it. Imagine you can hold Tinker Bell, talk to Farid or to the Thin Man! But you should aware that bad characters also included, think of what would you do when he's-the-one-who-should-not-be-named suddenly appear before your eyes and do the unforgiven charm. Think about the nightmares we all will have.I prefer to have those characters, no matter how amazing they are, stay in their world. I don't want to see another Staubfinger taken to this world of ours. Feeling so sad and lonely all the time because he can't go back to his world. However, we need more amazing authors who are able to narrate us great stories and introduce us to another great characters. Someone like Funke.***Keren sekali kalau karakter-karakter favorit kita benar-benar hidup. Katakanlah dunia magis Harry Potter itu nyata, wah senangnya kalau bisa masuk Hogwarts. Kita juga bisa memegang Tinker Bell atau berbicara pada si Manusia Timah. Sayangnya jika kita bisa memanggil karakter-karakter itu keluar dari buku, pasti kita juga entah sengaja atau tidak memanggil karakter-karakter jahat. Bayangkan jika dia-yang-tak-boleh-disebut-namanya, atau orang seperti Basta yang membakar habis buku-buku koleksi tante Elinor muncul di hadapan kita. Itu namanya mimpi buruk yang sepertinya tidak akan pernah berakhir!Bagiku lebih asyik jika semua karakter itu tetap di dunianya masing-masing. Dunia kita sudah dan sedang mengalami terlalu banyak masalah seperti pilpres, banjir, anak jalanan, koridor transjakarta yang gak berfungsi juga padahal halte sudah jadi dan sekarang menjadi sasaran vandalisme, dan macem-macem masalah lain. Tidak perlu ditambahi lagi kan?
—miaaa
Rating: 2.5* of fiveA doorstop of a tome, it's way too long for the story. Meggie isn't interesting enough to make me want to follow her through the convolutions of discovery with Mo and Elinor. I can't believe this took over 500pp to tell!And yet, and yet...it's aimed at a very different demographic than I am...young girls, it would seem, want long long long books about nothing much, like those hideous Stephenie Meyer warts on the Devil's buttcheeks. So for its target audience, it's a huge improvement over the otherwise available material.What is it, BTW, that leads adolescent females down these primrose paths of tedium? My daughter loooved the Robert Jordan "Wheel of Time" crapola, and I think she still reads them (I'm afraid to ask). If Inkheart had weighed in at 300pp or so, it would have been a much more exciting book. Is there some double-X-chromosome disorder that prevents y'all from liking excitement?Inquiring minds want to know.
—Richard Reviles Censorship Always in All Ways
