Inkspell
So, this book has good points and, like all of Cornelia Funke's work, it has some serious bad points. I'm going to take a while to elaborate.
Farid. Ugh, I hated him in Inkheart, and I hate him even more now. How exactly are we supposed to believe in him and Meggie having anything to do with each other? He dragged down Meggie's character so much by making her the type of girl who will fall in love with any doe-eyes she meets. Literally.
I loved the story itself, but even that had its drawbacks. For one, I don't remember the word "Inkworld" being mentioned at all in Inkheart. This happens a lot in continuing series--Harry Potter is actually the ultimate example, people never speak of a thing until it's explained in the new book, and suddenly it's all over the place. Also, while I was very much into the plot and everything involved with it, the characters' reactions to such horrible things was a bit stilted--as usual, it seems, for Cornelia's work. Her people don't connect to horrors in the way they should. Except maybe for Dustfinger.
I can't fault Dustfinger for anything (fault-filled as he is), even though I spent 25% of Inkheart hating him, 25% being indifferent to him, and 50% of it loving him. I loved him all the way through in Inkspell, until his final scene. That, I didn't love. I didn't have Inkdeath yet, and Cornelia just.....well. Dustfinger is one of my favorite characters EVER, so you can imagine.
Again, lots of the dialogue was stilted and cheap. Orpheus in particular didn't seem to have a point in existing, other than to get the book started. A great idea, not executed so well. I did, however, LOVE the fact that Elinor and Darius were basically written out of the book. Cornelia's ability to create characters I adore, and characters I loathe, is so good it's practically off the scale.
Oh, and one more thing before my rant ends: I liked Mo much better in this book. The Bluejay element was exactly what he was missing. (If only Fenoglio had been written out of the book, too, once he'd done his part. This book would have been sheer heaven.)
So, yeah, parts of the book are stupid and lame. Most of it was amazing. I've read it over and over again without getting tired of it--actually my sister and I had a bit of a war over it at one point, where I'd wait for her to leave the house so I could steal it and read a few chapters before she got back. She'd come home and find it missing, stamp into my room and snatch it back. I own the only copy in the house, and I lent it to her while I was rereading Inkheart, so...
