Review: Inkspell

Title: Inkspell (Inkheart #2)
Author: Cornelia Funke
Publisher: Scholastic
Publication Date: September 13th, 2005
Genre: Junior Fiction, Fantasy

It’s been a year since Meggie met the characters of the book Inkheart, which her father Mo magically can read out of the pages. Meggie has found that she holds the same power. After ten years apart, Meggie and Mo have been reunited with Resa, Meggie’s mother, who spent nearly a decade in the Inkworld. Resa is not able to talk, but through her notebook she tells Meggie everything about her time in the world in the book. While there were many terrifying things in the Inkworld, there is also so much beauty. Meggie cannot help being enchanted with the world and craves a chance to visit it. When Dustfinger finally finds a way back to the Inkworld with the help of a man named Orpheus, Farid wishes to follow him. When he asks Meggie to send him there, Meggie decides to go with him. Meggie just wants to see the Inkworld for herself, and she knows a way to send herself back home once she’s there. Together, Farid and Meggie set out to the Inkworld to find Dustfinger and protect him from the evil Basta. When they arrive, they meet up with Fenoglio, the original writer of Inkheart who is disappointed with how things in his story have changed from his original design. Fenoglio’s words have sparked even more troubles when Mo arrives and is mistaken for a robber from one of Fenoglio’s newer tales. While the Inkworld is just as beautiful as Meggie imagined, it is also full of cruelty and the same dangers that threatened Meggie’s life a year ago. One thing is for sure: words have a power that is greater than anyone imagined.

Boy, am I thankful that this book gave character descriptions in the preface. It’s been a year since I read Inkheart and these character descriptions helped remind me of what happened. Meggie is now thirteen and is enchanted with the world in the book Inkheart, from which her father accidentally brought characters from its pages to our world. Now Meggie wants to temporarily visit the Inkworld to experience the world that Dustfinger wanted to return to so badly. Using her ability that she inherited from her father, she manages to find a way inside the book, where her adventure begins. Inkspell was fast paced and full of creative world building. I like Funke’s writing and so many parts were beautifully phrased. This book, like Inkheart, raises many interesting questions about the books we read and the fantasy worlds we love. If you had a chance to enter your favourite book, would you? This book is mainly about the power of stories, and that mixed with the fantasy elements make it original. Funke took the ability that Meggie and Mo possessed in Inkheart and expanded on it and looked at the different things that could come from it. As a sequel, there wasn’t more you could ask for, since this time we get to go into the world of Inkheart, whereas in the first book we only got to meet characters that had once lived within the book’s pages. The stakes are much higher in this book. While the characters felt realistic, at the same time there so many of them and we didn’t get to know any of them that deeply. The length of the book made it feel like it dragged on forever. At the same time, this book was well written with a well-developed plot and fantasy world. Inkspell is really about words and Funke chooses hers well.

3.5/5

“Stories never really end...even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page.”