Inkspell

Like the previous book, this book asks the question of what would happen if you were actually able to disappear into your favorite book? Every reader and writer dreams of disappearing into their favorite story, but in reality what would that actually look like? The world inside of the Inkheart book is both beautiful, and dangerous. When Meggie and her family find themselves stuck in the Inkworld, they find that life there is not what they were expecting. Just like any world, there are good things and bad, good people and bad. The world of Inkheart is wonderfully realized, but it does seem like the story is more focused on the plot and concept, rather than the characters.

Once again, Meggie continues to be one of the only children in this story, even in the new Inkworld. There is some exploration of a romance between her and the one other young male character in the story, a boy named Farid who was plucked from a different book. Like all of the romantic relationships in these books, their romance is very light and innocent, and there is not a lot of time spent exploring it. Again, there is much more focus on violence and death, and not the relationships between the characters. There are some very strong hints at certain character’s relationships that I would have liked to see explored more. The characters in this story spend a lot of time trying to change things. Fenoglio the author of Inkheart tries to change his own story. Meggie tries to change the Inkworld to try and get back home to her own world. Even Meggie’s parents try and change their circumstances. The more that everyone tries to change things, they only seem to make things worse which begs the question, should you really try to change your own story?

On the surface level this is another fun adventure story, but there are some really thoughtful questions here that might be over a younger reader’s head. I personally found that these deep questions made the book more interesting than the previous volume.