Inkspell ~ Cornelia Funke

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke is the sequel to Inkheart. A year after Meggie and Mo manage to defeat Capricorn and bring Resa back home, Meggie can’t stop thinking about the Inkworld. She gleans every little detail out of Resa about her time in the Inkworld, but that still isn’t enough. One evening Farid appears at the front door, informing them that Dustfinger has managed to find someone to read him back into Inkheart, unfortunately, one of Dustfinger’s enemies also knows the reader. Farid begs Meggie to read him into Inkheart to save Dustfinger. Meggie agrees, as long as she can go with him.

I decided to start my 2023 reading challenge off by reading this quite hefty novel. Unfortunately, it was also slow-paced which made it feel like a bad start to the year. It was also a bit of a disappointing sequel to Inkheart.

Inkheart is a very complete novel and there are very few loose ends, so I was curious as to how that novel would be a trilogy. There was something about Inkspell that didn’t live up to the first book. The plot was very slow to start and almost ground to a halt.

The middle section of the book was my favourite, it held quite a bit of worldbuilding and was fun. I loved meeting all the characters we had only heard about in the first book. It was kind of magical with the festivals and the royal library and the illuminator. I couldn’t wait to continue reading this part of the book.

Annoyingly, the middle section did set up the plot point that disappointed me the most. Cornelia Funke plays around with death and resurrecting characters. And whilst, she has made it fit with the world she has built, it cheapened the ending considerably and took away some of the emotional impact. It reminded me too much of Supernatural and left a little bit of a bitter taste.

I read a lot of children’s and YA fiction and I find myself rooting for the protagonists all the time, however, I found myself desperately wanting to know how Mo and Resa were getting on and enjoying their chapters rather than Meggie’s. I honestly think I could read the entire book from Mo’s perspective and enjoy it just as much if not more. 

Overall, I was a little disappointed by the continuation of this trilogy. It won’t stop me from reading Inkdeath, just so I can see how Cornelia Funke wraps it all up, but I won’t set my expectations quite so high. 

I rated Inkspell three and a half stars.