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Loved It
This is an excellent ending to the trilogy. I can't wait for the movie!! The only problem I had was all three books are narrated by three different people. They all did wonderfully, but I really think Brendan Fraser did the best and it was really hard to transition from Brendan Fraser (Inkspell) to Allan Corduner(Inkdeath). I wish they would put out a set with Brendan Fraser reading all three books. It was really enchanting.
[Friday, November 21, 2008]
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A powerful statement of the power of reading, writing and storytelling to literally change the world
It's been five years since German author Cornelia Funke's novel INKHEART was first published in English. Since then, the absorbing fantasy, which focuses on characters who can travel in and out of worlds simply by reading books aloud, has captivated millions of fans and will even be made into a feature film in 2009. Now, the story that began with INKHEART and continued in INKSPELL comes full circle with INKDEATH.
The central character of the first two books was Meggie, a girl whose father, the bookbinder Mo, has the wonderful and dangerous ability to bring fictional characters to life when he reads aloud. Since the beginning of the series, Meggie and Mo have spent most of their time trying to get characters from the Inkworld back where they belong, while rescuing people from their world --- including Meggie's mother, Resa --- who have been drawn into the fictional one. Over the course of two rich, adventurous novels, Meggie and Mo have become intimately involved with the lives of dozens of others --- from their world and the Inkworld --- and have been drawn, sometimes against their will, into the increasingly ugly political machinations of the unstable Inkworld.
At the opening of INKDEATH, the evil Adderhead has taken control of the great city of Ombra and --- thanks to Mo's unwilling involvement --- has received the gift of eternal life. Mo, who has now gained notoriety as the robber Bluejay, is involved in nightly campaigns to protect Inkworld villagers from the Adderhead's terrorist marauders who roam the countryside. Meanwhile, Meggie pines for her friend (and possibly more) Farid, who has become a de facto slave to the criminal Orpheus, who uses his own ability to bring words to life to create (and then have Farid dig up) buried treasure all over the Inkworld. As for Farid, he lives in the ever-dwindling hope that Orpheus will somehow be able to bring Dustfinger (who sacrificed his own life to revive Farid's) back to life.
As one might be able to guess from the book's title, all does not end well for all the characters readers have come to care about during the series, and its themes are far more complex and mature than its predecessors. Not all is entirely bleak, however --- plenty of twists and turns, not to mention some compelling new characters, will keep audiences on the edge of their seats even as Funke gives them new thematic material to consider.
Funke herself comes to INKDEATH with a new and sober perspective. As she writes in a moving author's note, her husband of 26 years passed away shortly before the novel's 2007 publication in Germany. In the end, though, the Inkheart trilogy is not only an emotionally absorbing, thematically rich fantasy series. It's also a powerful statement of the power of reading, writing and storytelling to literally change the world.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
[Wednesday, November 19, 2008]
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