Inkspell (Inkheart Trilogy, #2)

by Cornelia Funke

Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of the extraordinary events of Inkheart, and the story whose characters strode out of the pages and changed her life forever. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater created from words, the need to return to the original tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the magical ability to read him back into the story, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges back into the Inkworld of his past. Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and soon they find their way inside the book too. There they meet Fenoglio, the author of the original Inkheart, now living within his own story - but discover it much changed, and threatening to evolve in sinister ways he could never have imagined. But can Meggie, Farid and Fenoglio 'write' the wrongs of a charmed world about to be fought over by rival princes and rebels?

• ISBN13: 9781904442721
• Publish Date: 3 October 2005 (first published 13 September 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 15 July 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Chicken House Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 688
• Language: English

Reviews

4,5 stars

"Stories never really end, Meggie," he had once told her, "even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on. They don't end on the last page, anymore that they begin on the first page."

Inkspell takes us to a place that we heard about in Inkheart, the Inkworld: a traditional fairytale world where beauty and intrigue hides darkness and cruelty. The Inkworld is interesting and contains a multitude of characters who are unique, but also extremely familiar. Inkspell is a book with a world within a world (kinda like Inception, just with books instead of dreams) and I enjoy the world-building, the fantasy aspect and the logic of it all. 

I'm also a huge fan of all the characters. They might seem predictable at times, but they are realistic and flawed. The most interesting character in Inkspell is Dustfinger. Inkspell is Dustfinger's story because we get to learn so much about him. There's so much that occurs in Inkspell, the characters go through so much and I enjoyed experiencing the world through their eyes. Cornelia Funke also knows how to write villains. Her villains are cliche, but because they're meant to be typical storybook villains, their characterizations work. The only thing that I didn't like was the romance between Meggie and Farid. I felt like it came out of nowhere and didn't make much sense. 

I enjoyed rereading Inkspell. Cornelia Funke's storytelling is such a treat! 

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Cornelia Funke's Inkworld trilogy inspires me. There is something to the simplicity of the idea that things can be read out of (or into) a book that tugs at my imagination. Unfortunately, Funke's writing style has always been difficult for me. She writes very slowly, and I have a hard time sitting in one place for too long. After struggling through both Inkheart and Reckless, I decided to try the audiobook version of Inkspell.

If you're like me and you want to LOVE Cornelia Funke, but struggle with her writing and pacing, an audiobook is the way to go. This one is read by Brendan Fraser (who played Mo in the Inkheart film) and he does a pretty good dramatic reading. Like Silvertongue, he draws you in, and I think that made it a lot easier for me to enjoy this book.

The Inkworld is pretty much what you'd expect in a cookie-cutter fantasy world. There are forests and kings and faeries and a little bit of magic. I love worlds like these, and it's built well, but it's filled with tropes. I'm okay with that - this is my genre, these are the worlds I like to disappear into the most.

As for the characters, there is growth and change, but it is VERY. VERY. SLOW. Farid's character begins to come more into his own, though I am still generally unimpressed with the ways he handles anger and sadness (although they make him a more faceted characters, so I suppose that good). There is a sweet little relationship blossoming between Farid and Meggie, which I enjoyed watching. Meggie herself feels far older than her age (always has), so that is still something to get past. Silvertongue himself is a frustrating character for me in Inkspell, because I really like him, but he's incapacitated most the story and we see very little from him. His POV, as well as Dustfinger's, are so painfully slow that even though I like the characters, I wanted to get out of their heads so the story would move along a bit.

And that's a running theme here - the world is so beautiful and the characters so interesting, but the writing just drags on and on and on. Even with the good narration, I found myself impatient at times. If I had been reading this in hardcopy, I honestly might have DNF'd it for the pacing, which would be sad, because I really liked the ending and will be listening to (definitely not reading) Inkdeath.

Actual review is a generous 3.5 stars, and it all comes from the worldbuilding and character potential.

[nannah]

This is probably one of my most favorite books in the world. Everything turns a little bit more towards the more serious side in this sequel. All the characters are perfect as ever, and to see all the different sides of the characters really is nice. It's so good! >.

[celinenyx]

Meh. I expected more. Inkheart had me hooked and was fun to read, even though it was very long. This book was great in the creative point of view, but it's just horribly long.

If there was so much to tell about this wouldn't be a problem, but there is nothing interesting going on. And when something finally does go on, we're not there to witness it, or it is over within a page or so. There is a terrible problem with the pacing of the story. We get lectured over and over again about every trivial detail, but the big climactic battle with armies of the Kings clashing was over in (not kidding) two pages. And we're not even in it. We just get told, hey, there they are! They're fighting! Oh, now everyone's dead. The pity.

I want to slap Mrs. Funke with her book. Maybe that will teach her to clip away all these needless descriptions and focus the story on what we do want to hear about, all those characters we love!

I really can't think of more to say about this book. It took me ages to read. Every time I was in bed and I wanted to read an hour or two, I started yawning after five minutes, and after a quarter of an hour I would just give up and go to sleep.

Part three looks a little bit thinner. And she did leave us hanging on the lamest cliffhanger EVER. Oh seriously, what was that end all about?! I turning the last page, looking if there was something written on the back that I missed. Nope, that was it. Yippee. Sorry for the biting sarcasm.