~Summary~
Meggie has never heard her father read aloud from a book before. Little does she know, this stems from an incident which occurred when she was younger. You see, Meggie’s father has an unusual skill, when he reads out loud, sometimes the characters come to life. And this is exactly what happened that night long ago, and now his past is back to haunt him. Capricorn and his evil sidekick, Basta, are villains who were read out of the book Inkheart by Meggie’s father twelve years ago, and now they are on the rise, hunting down the remaining copies of the book in hopes that they might never return to the world from which they were sprung. When Meggie discovers her father’s secret she swears to do whatever it takes to destroy Capricorn and protect her family.
~My Thoughts~
I struggled with this one. I had been putting off reading it for such a long time though that I knew I just had to do it. This book is really well loved so even though I had prepared myself that it would be long, I expected to enjoy it on the whole. However, there were a few things that tampered my enjoyment of this book. For one thing, the characters were hit or miss for me. The problem was that there was a lot of telling but not showing and as a result the characters were never really fleshed out. I found that for a time I’d enjoy a character but then they’d become childish and lose their appeal.
This probably also had something to do with my second point which was the repetitive nature of the book. I enjoyed the plot of the first half of the book, Meggie’s father was captured by Capricorn and his men so Meggie and her aunt went on a mission to save him which was all well and exciting, but then in part two, if I’m not mistaken (apologies it’s been a minute since I read this), Meggie’s father is captured by Capricorn and his men so Meggie and her aunt go on a mission to save him. Sound familiar?
This book wasn’t a total loss though. Probably my favorite thing was how there was a different quote which preceded each chapter. At first I didn’t really pay attention to them but as the book went on they were a lot of fun to read as they did such a great job of setting the scene for the chapter that followed. Another thing I liked was how perfectly the author captured the essence of being a bookworm. There were so many little things that I could (sometimes embarrassingly) relate to and as someone who doesn’t meet many people who love books as much as I do it felt like someone finally understood the everyday struggles of being a book nerd.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book: ” To think of all the times I’ve wished I could slip right into one of my favorite books. But that’s the advantage of reading-you can shut the book whenever you want.” Happy Reading 🙂
The Art of Reading 