June Wrap-Up

Books Read: 9

5 stars: 0

4 stars: 3

Inkheart

Moone Boy: The Fish Detective

Postmortem: Establishing the Cause of Death

3 stars: 5

The Bourne Identity

Complementary and Acute

Inkspell

Inkdeath

Beauty Queens

2 stars: 0

1 stars: 1

The Art of Being Normal

DNF: 2

Jilo - I put this down pretty early in the book, but I do plan on attempting it again one day when I am more in the mood for it.

A Safe Place with You - I stopped reading at 15%. This work could have really benefited from the work of a more experienced translator.

Reviews Written: 12

Wrap-up: I feel good about the number of books read this month. I had more free time this month, but I started writing again and after a twelve year hiatus, I took up the clarinet again. I've also been going out every Friday morning with Abby to kayak. So, while I had plenty of free time, I've been devoting it to other activities.

July Reading List

I don't have much of a plan for reading this month. I want to finish The Hobbit and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I expect to complete American Gods this month as well. I lost my reading-buddy last month and haven't really picked it up since. I can't remember where I stopped in, not having updated the reading progress in a while, so I might have to go back and refresh my memory.

May Wrap-Up

Books Read: 12

5 stars: 1

The Jungle Book

4 stars: 3

Joan of Arc

The Story of Kullervo

Lord of Chaos

3 stars: 7

A Ghost in the Machine

The Last Dragonslayer

The Nine Tailors

Dr. Strange Volume I

Peter Pan

Golem

Murder in Baker Street

Mockingbird

2 stars: 1

Veronica's Grave

1 stars: 0

DNF: 1

A Safe Place with You

Reviews written: 9

In light of recent events, I spent the last couple of weeks backing up my reviews and posts to Wordpress. In case anybody wants to follow me on the other sites here's a list:

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June Reading List

I'm still reading The Bourne Identity, but after I finish I plan on jumping into the Inkheart Trilogy. I'll be reading the illustrated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and I'll also be reading Parrotfish this month. Parrotfish was recommended to me by someone, though I can't recall who. I expect to read more books this month, but I don't have the rest of the months reading planned out yet. 

I HATE CLIFFHANGER ENDINGS! 3 1/2 stars.

Original Title: Tintenblut

I really enjoyed reading the first book of this series. So after I finished Inkheart I went to the bookstore to get this second book. It's a book about a world in a book, and as a child I thought that was wonderful. In Inkspell, we actually get into the book!

This is a book for children, or maybe they classify it as YA nowadays (I wouldn't do that), so you have to keep in mind that the writing style is a little childish sometimes. I don't think that is a problem, cause you know you can find such things while reading a book for children. Anyway, I was a bit younger when I read the book and at that time I really liked it. The story has such wonderful characters and is very original, I would definitely recommend this series.

Note: I read a Dutch translation of this book

So, this book has good points and, like all of Cornelia Funke's work, it has some serious bad points. I'm going to take a while to elaborate.

Farid. Ugh, I hated him in Inkheart, and I hate him even more now. How exactly are we supposed to believe in him and Meggie having anything to do with each other? He dragged down Meggie's character so much by making her the type of girl who will fall in love with any doe-eyes she meets. Literally.

I loved the story itself, but even that had its drawbacks. For one, I don't remember the word "Inkworld" being mentioned at all in Inkheart. This happens a lot in continuing series--Harry Potter is actually the ultimate example, people never speak of a thing until it's explained in the new book, and suddenly it's all over the place. Also, while I was very much into the plot and everything involved with it, the characters' reactions to such horrible things was a bit stilted--as usual, it seems, for Cornelia's work. Her people don't connect to horrors in the way they should. Except maybe for Dustfinger.

I can't fault Dustfinger for anything (fault-filled as he is), even though I spent 25% of Inkheart hating him, 25% being indifferent to him, and 50% of it loving him. I loved him all the way through in Inkspell, until his final scene. That, I didn't love. I didn't have Inkdeath yet, and Cornelia just.....well. Dustfinger is one of my favorite characters EVER, so you can imagine.

Again, lots of the dialogue was stilted and cheap. Orpheus in particular didn't seem to have a point in existing, other than to get the book started. A great idea, not executed so well. I did, however, LOVE the fact that Elinor and Darius were basically written out of the book. Cornelia's ability to create characters I adore, and characters I loathe, is so good it's practically off the scale.

Oh, and one more thing before my rant ends: I liked Mo much better in this book. The Bluejay element was exactly what he was missing. (If only Fenoglio had been written out of the book, too, once he'd done his part. This book would have been sheer heaven.)

So, yeah, parts of the book are stupid and lame. Most of it was amazing. I've read it over and over again without getting tired of it--actually my sister and I had a bit of a war over it at one point, where I'd wait for her to leave the house so I could steal it and read a few chapters before she got back. She'd come home and find it missing, stamp into my room and snatch it back. I own the only copy in the house, and I lent it to her while I was rereading Inkheart, so...