From the Bookshelf of ♥ Nothing Better Than Reading!! ♥ …

Inkheart (Inkworld, #1)

Cornelia Funke,

Anthea Bell (Translator)

Start date: May 1, 2015

Finish date: May 31, 2015

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What Members Thought

Jul 04, 2017 Angela Blount rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, middle-grade

2.5 Stars

Marvelous premise. (Somewhat reminiscent of the Chinese folktale: The Magic Paintbrush.)
The idea of someone being able to read aloud and imagine so thoroughly that they literally pull things from the pages of books is a superpower many a bookworm could envy. Of course, if they couldn’t control the ability, it could potentially be quite the nightmare… And in this we have the conflict for Inkheart.

A story-within-a-story is an impressively ambitious effort—regardless of the medium. The de 2.5 Stars

Marvelous premise. (Somewhat reminiscent of the Chinese folktale: The Magic Paintbrush.)
The idea of someone being able to read aloud and imagine so thoroughly that they literally pull things from the pages of books is a superpower many a bookworm could envy. Of course, if they couldn’t control the ability, it could potentially be quite the nightmare… And in this we have the conflict for Inkheart.

A story-within-a-story is an impressively ambitious effort—regardless of the medium. The descriptions in this case are thorough and languid, and the father/daughter relationship between Mo and Meggie was refreshing. Elinor was actually my favorite character. As the crotchety old-maid aunt, showed the most interesting (and convincing) character development throughout. For being translated into English, the prose maintained a certain readable fluidity I’m sure contributed to its bestseller success.

Regretfully, I found this dark-ish Middle-Grade Urban Fantasy not so much to my taste. A good portion of my hesitation I can attribute to the excessively wordy execution and sluggish pacing. The book doesn't really pick up into anything resembling action until around page 150. And by the end, I remain convinced 1/3rd of the book could have been trimmed down with no injury to the repeat run-and-hide plot or the character growth. And while the continual asides into the world of book printing, binding, and/or collecting are interesting, they often stray too close to pretentious.

There are SO many metaphors in use. Almost as frequent as Memoirs of a Geisha, but unfortunately not as lovely or memorable. There is also a tendency toward offering double metaphors--a "like___/or ___". Personally, it rubbed me wrong. I constantly found myself distracted with trying to decide which metaphor I liked best rather than moving on with the story.

Mo's lack of persuasiveness was increasingly frustrating throughout the story. Why does he never point out to EvilBadGuy that he obviously can't control who goes in or out of the books he reads, because if he could, (view spoiler) It seems an obvious argument and emotional punch that simply wasn’t utilized.
And on a related note… one would think a clever villain would see his henchmen being inadvertently lost due to uncontrolled book-reading (potentially endangering his existence as well), and do a little more exploratory research into getting what he wants at a lower personal cost.

This wasn’t unsatisfying in its wrap-up, but unfortunately I just wasn’t left with a desire to read any further into the series. :/ ...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Vikas rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Inkheart the start of this trilogy about books and every readers dreams. What if you can live in the stories you love.

My dream of being a writer is realized and I am now a Goodreads Author. People who don't read generally ask me my reasons for reading. Simply put I just love reading and so to that end I have made it my motto to just Keep on Reading. I love to read everything except for Self Help books but even those once in a while. I read almost all the genres but YA, Fantasy, Biographies are t ...more

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