Monday, January 19, 2009

Inkdeath


Inkdeath

by Cornelia Funke


I always love coming to the end of a series. Closure is such a lovely thing. These are great books. A true book-lovers books. There are so many nods to the art and love of reading and so many fantastic quotes from great lit at the beginning of each chapter (not totally obscure things either, there were even a couple of Harry Potter quotes!). The premise itself is a book-lovers dream. A bookbinder named Mo discovers that when he reads out loud he can bring characters inside a book to life (and, as he discovers later, he can also read himself and others into a book). The series follows his adventures with his daughter Meggie (and other family members, as well as a whole host of characters from a book entitled Inkheart.) I won't reveal any of the plot from the third book, as it would most definitely contain spoilers for the first and second books.

I will say that I had to sludge a bit through the first half of this book. I was beginning to worry that it lacked the originality of the first book and the exciting new setting of the second. However, it picked up with a bang and ended brilliantly. I had at times thought the writing was a little awkward in the first two books (owing, no doubt, to their having been translated from German), but the problem seemed to be nonexistent in the third. I'd absolutely recommend it and I've added two other Cornelia Funke books to my long list of to-read's, The Thief Lord and Dragon Rider.

4 comments:

Lynnette said...

I am totally looking forward to Inkdeath. I've read the other books in the series and loved them. Thanks for the positive comments. I'll have to get to it soon.

Sonia B said...

I had a tough time with Inkheart and am struggling to be motivated to get into the other two. I loved "Dragon Rider" and even read it outloud to my kids. They never wanted to stop. Thanks for the fun blog.

Sheri said...

I've considered reading these. So maybe I'll put them on my list.

Elizabeth said...

We actually listened to the second one on books on tape with Brendan Frasier reading it and loved it. His voice for it was fabulous and really made the story come alive--I was even moved to tears a few times, I so much prefered it to actually reading it (which is rare) but I haven't loved her books. He was much more emotionally compelling than he was in his movies. I got this book from the library on books on tape only to discover that Frasier didn't do the reading, so we sent it back. But I still want to know what happens, so I will be adding this to my library hold list soon.