Inkspell

First off, allow me to say that I intend this review to be “safe”, and by that I mean that I do not intend to spoil this book for anyone who has not read all the way through it. Please, feel free to read this review and comment.

Characters: The same sorts of things that I said about the last book apply to this book, of course. Cornelia returns to her old characters with the same sense of mystery that she never entirely dispelled in Inkheart. Dustfinger is still…well…Dustfinger! You cannot predict with any degree of certainty what he will do in any given situation. He surprised me again, and it was beautiful. She does introduce new characters, and these characters are wonderful. Reading about the Black Prince is refreshing, The Laughing/Weeping Prince is tragically poignant, Roxane is entrancing! They make the novel, as her original cast did in Inkheart. Absolutely magical.

Writing: Again, Funke weaves a story of suspense, happiness, and sadness. Fenoglio returns, though there are times you wish he would not, but his weaving of a story within a story is incredible (misguided?). :) As I was telling a friend last night, the story moved somewhat more slowly than I expected. (Translation: I was not up until 4am turning pages), but I still felt compelled to find out what happens next. Some characters play a larger part in the story than they originally did, and others fall surprisingly into the background. However, the story is still wonderful, and still highly recommended reading.

Plot: Again, I seem to have covered some of this in the last paragraph, but the plot seemed to move more slowly. When being introduced into the world of Mo, Meggie, Elinor, and Dustfinger, I was reading at a breakneck pace. In fact, this is a common occurrence, as I discuss the novel with my friends. However, this novel progressed more slowly. I still loved how Funke weaved the plot elements, but subjectively, I was not nearly as eager to read the rest of this novel. Perhaps this had to do with other things I had going on, but I just didn’t feel the sense of urgency that Funke conveyed so well in the last novel.

That being said, I do not think that Funke wrote a snail of a novel. I feel she attempted to continue her novel from before, and though much of the novel was new…it was not as new as it was when perusing the first pages of Inkheart.

The final aspect of plot I would like to discuss is the aspect of a sequel’s contrived nature. When someone writes a novel or films a movie that they intended to be the be-all end-all plot device of the complete story, it’s rather obvious when profits and demand forces them to write a sequel. In this, I feel, Funke did a fine job. She added her new plot elements to the story with minimal explanations as to why certain new characters did not make it into the thoughts of older characters though you fully think they would have. She just explains it simply, which is her best option here. That being said, to me it was obvious that she never intended to write Inkspell when she was writing Inkheart. Too much was added, and too little from Inkheart hinted at it. I found on her website where she said that she never intended to write a sequel, and this is obvious. However…as a post-conceived sequel, I think she did a tremendous job with what she had to work! She definitely wrote Inkspell to tie in to the final chapter in the series…that of Book III, however, as the ending is definitely in the cliffhanger style.

Conclusions: I initially said that Inkheart is an inventive, and worthy read, and Inkspell fits into the same mold. It carries a bit of a contrived nature, as you would expect a post-conceived sequel to do. However, being that I don’t see how she could have really written a sequel without some aspect of stretching the thoughts of the previous characters, I think she did a fine job, and I still feel that you will not regret spending the time it will take you to read this book. Funke proves herself to be a fine writer of sequels, if not so fine as Rowling, who has always intended Harry Potter to mature through 7 years at Hogwarts! Such a difference must be noted. I highly recommend this novel, and I highly look forward to the final installment.

Overall Recommendation: