Inkdeath

Book Title: Inkdeath

Author: Cornelia Funke
Series: Inkworld #3

Date Started: April 8th 2016

Date Completed: April 20th 2016

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

Inkdeath is a living, breathing fairytale on a larger scale. There are so many little reminiscent details, but it's all strung together by Funke's entirely original and stunning imagination. I've waited a long time to read this book - I read Inkheart when I was about seven or eight - but the second I opened the page I was entirely lost in the Inkworld again the whole way through. I didn't notice it was taking me a while to read or that it was so long, because I wasn't there to notice the page numbers, I was in Ombra, or Elinor's library, or in the Black Prince's cave, or in Violante's castle.

Funke's love of books and storytelling is so tangible in her writing that it makes it impossible not to fall in love with reading all over again. If anything, Inkheart and its sequels are a love letter to books and stories, for children and adults, girls and boys: 'books love anyone who opens them' and it really comes across.

The writing is very traditional in terms of the kinds of roles available for each character (e.g. women, children etc), but Funke acknowledges this and still finds little ways around it anyway. For example, there's always a little sign in the children's voices when they know that they can't be the heroes of the story, and that the Bluejay has to do that for them, but they can still fight and they do. Just little ways around things like that show that you can still use traditional conventions without marginalising people (which is I think something we still struggle with sometimes in storytelling).

The Inkworld series is based a lot around world building , so I was happy to see that Inkdeath both worked well with what had already been established, but also was able to take steps forward from the previous books. We get to discover more but still explore the storylines already in place.

You can see on every page just how much inspiration is taken from fairytales, but I also noticed how much Funke has taken from more modern books as well - the quotes at the start of each chapter name influences like Ted Hughes, Philip Pullman, Markus Zusak etc, but I could feel all the different influences in the writing too. Funke's own style is very much in centerstage, but its nice being able to pick out all the various other aspects you can recognise from all over literature. Not least because you're reading about people from our world that have found themselves lost between the pages of a book. And in the best way possible, Funke does this with sophistication: full of the magic and elegance of traditional fairytale, but with the magic and wit of a child's imagination. This isn't your average children's book.

The final climax of Inkdeath wasn't as dramatic as I had hoped, but the book had the most wonderful epilogue I've ever read. Inkdeath, for me, stays at a relatively similar level of tension and excitement throughout, so the finale didn't burst out of the pages as maybe I was expecting, but the fact that when I closed the book I felt so satisfied at how everything had drawn together was more than enough for me.

Inkdeath is the kind of book where every character is meticulously crafted and perfectly chosen, and who you can't help but love, even if they're not a good guy. On top of that you have all the layers of relationships they have with everyone around them, which are all heartwarming to say the least. Without going into spoilers, Dustfinger has 100% been the best character of the entire series and he will be one of my most beloved fictional characters forever.

I've always liked Mo, but I don't think I'd ever really connected with the main protagonist of these books as much as I did in this one. I think his confliction between being the bookbinder, and the Bluejay that Fenoglio had written him as was the game changer for me; as much as perfect Mo is great, seeing his dark side was really interesting.

Meggie is just as much as protagonist as her father of course. I don't feel like she had as much of a role as she had in Inkspell, but her presence was still a key part to the book, and a key part to showing us how beautiful the Inkworld is. You might have Mo running around for his - and everyone else's - life, but getting to see the Inkworld in all its glory again from a slightly (only slightly) less dramatic angle gave that good balance that kept my motivation to read up.

Pacing-wise Inkdeath was just right: it isn't the kind of book that is unputdownable because of the constant state of drama, but at the same time the sheer amount of different stories happening at the same time, all converging on one point means that every time you get to the end of a chapter and have a peek at the next one, you just want to keep going. I didn't get bored at any point, and I was completely lost in the story the whole time.

The Inkworld trilogy is one of those series that I can always go back to and feel comforted by. Even though it's over it's still like Hogwarts in the way that I can go right back to it whenever I need it. Although Inkdeath itself didn't overwhelm me with emotions I still loved it, and thought it was a wonderful end to the story. Part of the reason I wasn't overwhelmed by it was because of how comforted I am by it: doesn't matter if you're in a life-threatening situation, I feel a home in this world (which is ironically the same predicament as quite a few of the characters so it evens out in the end).

Image Source - https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQcCA-OqQnHbnt2no_obJ0Udo2bXlphbzsEIgEiLj7E0jL6NDFB-Ty_s_hbJ5gPQM5AE4_hM4RWdlyjF78Pkgtw8y38UyQcEBgSCJyRwfT8tjE1tlpVoIU87deOELesc65IAbUUf0AhzA/s1600/2325825.jpeg