...I REALLY wanted to like this book. The plot sounded so good, and it seemed perfect anyone who loves to read and who loves books themselves. A book restorer who can pull characters from the pages by reading aloud? I thought it was a sure thing. Needless to say, I was severely disappointed. I've liked Cornelia Funke's books in the past, particularly The Thief Lord, but as I read Inkheart, I noticed over and over again how hollow the story felt, and how much opportunity the author had to make a really amazing book with her great beginning idea. The characters had no depth (despite their emotional reactions to books), and seemed to all be cliches: there's a crazy book-loving aunt, mafiosi, dumb henchmen, etc. I never really bought the sadness and despair that the characters felt from being ripped from their homes within the book, something that Funke really could have developed. Likewise, I never bought that the three book-lovers truly loved books. They didn't reference very many, and even seemed to convey an arrogance about their love of books that I found off-putting.

The author also chose to head each chapter with a quote from a book that supposedly prefaced what was to come, but I found her selections poor, and most of the quotes (59 chapters, after all) came from only a handful of books. It felt like, similar to her characters, she only has read a few books.

However, maybe I felt this way because the books that the heroine, Meggie, loves are all books I kind of really dislike. Speaking of Meggie, what about her was I supposed to like? She came off as very bratty and negative instead of brave and precocious, which I'm sure the author meant to portray. The mastermind of evil, Capricorn, only wanted to live in a dilapidated Italian village and hoard treasure read out of books while bullying the neighboring towns into silence about his existence. Why exactly was he so scary? What was his evil evil goal? Did he even use the gold to get stuff?

And perhaps most disappointing is that nothing really happened with the plot. We find out early on what Mo (a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE choice to name the hero) is hiding from Meggie (the ability to read things out of books), they meet up with Capricorn quickly, they run away, they are recaptured, they plan their escape, the big climax fizzles out. Yet there are 500 pages to fill.

I prefer books that give vital information on each page. I could read about 3 sentences on a page and get all the information that was needed. Seriously, what do editors do? I could have cut this book from 500 pages to a solid 150. I know people want to write like J.K. Rowling. However, not every book written needs to be a 750 page book. A long book is not the only requirement to a good book. Was she paid by the page? I don't know what the deal was.