Throughout the fascinating story of Inkheart, readers will be intrigued on the different character’s outlook on books, and how books themselves have an immense effect on the character’s lives and how the books carry the story. The way that several of the main characters value and treasure books, such as Meggie and her father treat books as though the books not only contained stories of kings, but as kings themselves. One tragic night, Meggie’s father, Mo, was reading aloud from a book titled Inkheart. He involuntarily caused two worlds, one from a story, and ours, to collide. Characters from each world had swapped places, all done by the magic of Mo’s storytelling. Since that day, the story follows Mo and Meggie and their adventures of narrowly avoiding the dreaded ruler Capricorn, and his faithful companion Basta, both of which pulled from the story of Inkheart. At the same time, they wish to bring back a loved one from this character swap, and send a friend back to his story.

What I enjoyed about the book was the immense detail threaded into the story. Almost every event couldn’t get away with a simple sentence. Everything was easily drawn out in your mind by Cornelia Funke’s amazing way of beautifully and menacingly decorating her story. Although the story unfolded incredibly slowly (due to the mountains of detail), it was rather interesting. There is a plot twist near the end of the story, but I believe it was foreshadowed too heavily and much too predictable. The story is very creative, and unlike anything I’ve ever read. What makes it so unique is that Inkheart is about a story in the book also titled Inkheart, and how the entire story revolves around its fictional counterpart. It is not action-packed, or fast-paced, by the way. Only about the last 100-150 pages are actually exciting, in my point of view.

There is quite a bit of irony and almost humor throughout the book, as you are constantly reading of a story called Inkheart, inside of the story you are reading titled Inkheart. If you think about it in a different perspective and what if the two stories are actually the same, or what if their roles had been swapped, it’s quite the brain teaser and a paradox, really. For example, the leading antagonist, Capricorn, was in the story of Inkheart inside of this book Inkheart. He was then drawn out of the story-inside-of-a-story, and put into Inkheart. Yes, it sounds confusing at first, but there are characters taken out of one Inkheart and put into another one. You’d be surprised at how often one Inkheart toys with the story of the other. Foreshadowing was constantly evident in the book, almost spoiling the next 50 pages or so. The main point of conflict is how everybody in the story wants the book Inkheart, and a magic reader to get what they want from it. The setting was always wonderfully constructed. As far as you need to know, consider anyone who isn’t named Capricorn, Basta, Magpie, or Capricorn’s men a protagonist.

My recommendation for the story is that I don’t think you should read it if you watched any Michael Bay film and enjoyed it. It doesn’t have any explosions or lasers or anything of the sort. I do recommend it if you wanting to find and read something that’s visually stunning in your mind, and would entertain you if it simply just took you for a tour in it’s world using only words. You will most certainly are provided more than enough tools to fully understand the beauty of the world of Inkheart. For my preference, I typically enjoy stories with a little more adventure than this one had, but nonetheless it was fabulously crafted. I would rate 3.5/5 stars, but I’m sure for this type of story anyone could rate it 1/5 or even 5/5.