I thought the book started out great, but then somewhere around the middle I completely lost interest in it. The characters are kind of boring and the plot drags on much longer than necessary. It took a lot of effort to finish it. I probably would have liked 'Inkheart' better if it had less pages. ( )

I decided to give this book a second chance after seeing the movie and did finish it this time. There are some good ideas here for a YA fantasy and Funke tells a good story. However, somehow I preferred the movie which is rare for me. Funke's other books were more satisfactory.

i love this book. Trust me that any one at any age would love this book. ( )

This book is awesome! I love how it talks about actually traveling into the book! Something i have done many tomes, though not literally! It is full of suspense, and even the occasional romantic scene! ( )

Uninteresting ( )

Imagine book characters, evil ones, literally leaping off the pages into your living room! Meggie learns some magic of her own and challenges the evil Capricorn.

Inkheart is about a twelve year old girl named Meggie who's fathers voice can bring characters from books to the modern world in Italy whenever he reads aloud. Her father, Mo, is scared to read aloud because of the tragedy nine years ago that brought out Dustfinger, Capricorn, and a warrior named Basta but trapped his wife, Theresa, into the world of ink in the book, Inkheart. Nine years later Mo is given a surprise visit from his friend, Dustfinger. Dustfinger tells Mo that Capricorn wants all the copies of Inkheart left in the world. Also that Capricorn wants Mo and his voice to read out more characters out of books. ( )

I saw the movie and didn't really like it. I decided to give the book a try because I liked the plot itself, and wound up intrigued. I agree with those who think it is to long, and that it would be better at about 300 pages. And yet, despite the length, I found it moved at just barely a fast enough pace to keep me interested. My favorites are Dustfinger and Farid. I want a library like Elinor's! ( )

A doorstop of a tome, it's way too long for the story. Meggie isn't interesting enough to make me want to follow her through the convolutions of discovery with Mo and Elinor. I can't believe this took over 500pp to tell!

And yet, and yet...it's aimed at a very different demographic than I am...young girls, it would seem, want long long long books about nothing much, like those hideous Stephenie Meyer warts on the Devil's buttcheeks. So for its target audience, it's a huge improvement over the otherwise available material.

What is it, BTW, that leads adolescent females down these primrose paths of tedium? My daughter loooved the Robert Jordan "Wheel of Time" crapola, and I think she still reads them (I'm afraid to ask). If Inkheart had weighed in at 300pp or so, it would have been a much more exciting book. Is there some double-X-chromosome disorder that prevents y'all from liking excitement?

Inquiring minds want to know. ( )

Wonderfully imaginative ... how words can bring characters to life, literally! ( )

This was one of the best books I ever read, so I thought for sure this book's average rating would be at least a 4, but somehow it is not at this level? ( )

love it ( )

Meggie, 12, and her father, Mo, share a love of books. In fact, their house is full of books. But, despite their constant reading, Mo will never read out loud to Meggie. She wonders why until one day a stranger, Dustfinger, shows up at their house and Meggie discovers the awful truth. When reading out loud, Mo has the ability to read characters out of the book and into real life. Unfortunately, he has no control over which character he reads out and one terrible day when Meggie is 3, he reads out a terrible villain, Capricorn, out of a novel called "Inkheart". As if that wasn't bad enough, Mo inadvertently reads his wife, Teresa, into the book. Nine years later, Dustfinger warns Mo that Capricorn is looking for him because he wants Mo to read more evil characters out of "Inkheart". Mo and Meggie go on the run, but it's not long before Capricorn catches up with Mo, Meggie, Dustfinger and Meggie's Aunt Elinor. When Meggie finds out that she too can read characters out of books, she is in even more danger.

"Inkheart" is a charming fantasy. Cornelia Funke is a gifted writer and readers will be instantly drawn into Meggie's world. The premise of being able to read characters out of books is an intriguing one and Funke utilizes it fully. The characters are well written: Meggie is an engaging heroine; Mo is a loving, if somewhat unreliable father; Elinor is better at dealing with books than people, but grows as a character as the book moves along. Dustfinger is perhaps the most interesting and human character, he is neither totally good nor bad, but, read into the "real" world he longs to return to the world of "Inkheart" and will do anything, even betray his friends, to achieve that goal.

"Inkheart" does have some flaws. One flaw is it's length, at 534 pages the size of the book may put off young readers and those that start it may lose interest along the way. Funke could easily have cut out some minor characters and scenes (Tinker Bell was especially annoying). Also, although Mo reads characters into stories as he is reading characters out of them, Funke seems to forget that at times and uses it only when it is needed as a plot device. Finally, a character that is mute is suddenly able to scream, a development that pulled me right out of the story.

Those minor points aside, "Inkheart" is a wonderful fantasy for young and old alike. ( )

This book was ok. It is a very different book, not your average fiction story. A girl finds out her father has a special talent- when he reads books out loud he can bring the characters to life. The girl finds out later in the book, she too has this ability. After releasing an evil charater from a book, they must fight to get the characters back into the book. Its a series, "Inkheart Trilogy." I give this book a 7.8 out of 10. ( )

I could definitely tell how much Cornelia Funke loves books. Reading Inkheart was like one long love letter to books. She also likes descriptive sentences. There were so many good ones.

This was certainly a page turner, because I wanted to know what was going to happen next and how Mo, Meggie, and Fenoglio were going to solve the problem of the characters from the book. I was almost disappointed when the book came to an end because it was such an enjoyable journey.

Minor quibble, I wish Funke had put more details of the area in the book. At times I completely forgot the story was taking place in Europe. ( )

This was the audio book for a long family trip and was a definite success. I hadn't expected to like it. I had read one previous book by Cornelia Funke, The Thief Lord, and the best I could say about it was, "well, it was OK." This story, on the other hand, had all of us engaged from the get go and, even though we were all pretty sure we could predict a happy ending, we stayed tuned right up to the end.

The concepts and plots were original, the writing and pacing flowed very smoothly (my big complaint about The Thief Lord) and the characters were generally appealing. I think the kids would probably give it four stars in my rating system. I can only give it 3½ because I did have two problems with it. They didn't really interfere with enjoying the story, but they did float across my mind several times while I was listening.

The rather minor one is that I absolutely hate it when one character says to another, "I've figured things out...but I don't want to tell you, yet." And then, of course, they are unable to do so later when that knowledge would have been useful. It's simply a too-artificial way of creating suspense.

The second, larger problem is that the relationship between Meggie and her father, Mo, lacked a little something. We were told that it was very loving and very close. However, I didn't really see that demonstrated. If I hadn't been told many times how much he adored her, I would have thought him a rather distant and stern father.

Still, despite that, the story had enough going for it to make me glad I listened to it and determined to pick up the sequel, Inkspell. ( )

What a lovely book, full of villains and suspense and paens to the wonder and magic of books. ( )

Full of magic and adventure. one of the kinds that proves how much different could be a book from its motion pictures! I read the book after my son so that we'll watch its movie together. In my opinion, if you haven't read the book, you can not follow the movie or at least it would n't give you what the book intended to give you after reading it!

Great, complex characters and good adventure story.

I had my first taste of Cornelia Funke's writing when I read "The Thief Lord" several years ago. After reading this novel, this first impression has only been strengthened tenfold. Funke creates an incredibly imaginative and exciting world in this novel. The story moved along at an excellent pace. I found it hard at times to put the novel down. If the other two books in the "Inkheart" series are as good as the first, I'll be doing a lot more reading over the summer. ( )

If you think I'm a grinch for giving this book three stars, then you'll be furious when I tell you that I really wanted to just give it two, but somewhere in my three-sizes-too-small heart, I felt compelled to recognize some of the creativity in this and so I've conceded a star.

Inkheart opens on Meggie, a twelve year old girl raised by her father (whose name is Mortimer and rather than call him Dad, she calls him Mo) in a house where books cover every inch of available space. Mo repairs books for a living and when he's not repairing them, he's reading them. Meggie has also inherited the reading gene, and even sleeps with a book under her pillow, so it can whisper a story into her ear. And while we're told by Meggie everything that would suggest this is a cozy home and loving (albeit small) family where they keep no secrets from each other, we're immediately thrust into events that put all of this on its ear.

Meggie sees a man looking up at the house in the middle of the night and while her father mocks her for imagining things, when he sees for himself, he recognizes him and lets the man in. His name is Dustfinger and he calls Meggie's father "Silvertongue." What results is Mo futilely spending a lot of time trying to hide things from Meggie. He even tries to ditch Dustfinger and take Meggie to her great-aunt Elinor's home, but he's forced to bring him along. (The book obsession runs in the blood on both sides of the family, evidently, because Elinor's home is more like a library, with incredibly valuable books under lock and key.) But of course, the truth eventually comes out to reveal that Meggie's father has kept much bigger secrets from her than she ever thought possible.

Mortimer is called "Silvertongue" by Dustfinger because he has a wondrous and terrible gift: when Mortimer reads aloud from books, things happen. More specifically, items from the story he is reading are conjured out of thin air and characters are literally brought to life -- but the price for such transport seems to be that items from this world would disappear into the story. Nine years ago, while he was reading a book called Inkheart to Meggie's mother, Mortimer accidentally brought three men from the book to life... Dustfinger and two villains named Capricorn and Basta. And if this wasn't terrible enough, Meggie's mother was taken in to the book. Despite many attempts, Mo could never read Teresa out of the book and so he was left alone with their baby daughter.

For the past nine years, Dustfinger survived in the world by performing tricks like a gypsy... eating fire and juggling at carnivals, but he still remains homesick for the world in the book, even though he can never bear to read the book's ending to discover his fate. Capricorn, meanwhile, built up an army of henchmen in this world and desperately wants to capture Mortimer and use his skills for his own purposes. Sure, Capricorn found some other guy who could read things out of books, but they never quite turned out well, and so he wants Silvertongue to read out an evil that would make Capricorn all-powerful. In addition, Capricorn has been collecting copies of Inkheart, so Mo might have the only copy that is not already in Capricorn's possession. Without Inkheart to read from, Mo has no hope of ever rescuing Teresa from the book. And so now, Dustfinger has apparently arrived to warn Mortimer that Capricorn knows his latest hiding spot... but no one realizes (the all too obvious fact) that Dustfinger has betrayed them... in many ways.

For the rest of the book, Mo, Meggie, Elinor and Dustfinger are captured, escape, and are captured again by Capricorn and his henchmen, with Basta at the forefront. A host of villainous characters are at his disposal and our good guys are desperate to discover a way to thwart Capricorn while still keeping a copy of Inkheart safe. Over the course of the story, we pick up a few other characters, including a boy conjured from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, a mute woman brought out of Inkheart who looks suspiciously familiar, and the author of Inkheart himself who feels responsible for the men he created out of ink and paper.

On the positive side, I'm generally approving of any book that promotes literature in such a way. There's something about being a child who loves books reading a book about people who love books... it makes you sense the true value and magic of the written word. And the idea of someone who can read things out of books is good enough... but the fact that there is a price to be paid for it is even better. And hey, I have to give points to any book that quotes The Princess Bride.

But as far as my grievances go, there's a big problem that I have with the adult characters in general. Rather than have scenes demonstrate things about these characters and their attributes, we're TOLD everything about them. We certainly understand that Meggie is utterly devoted to Mo, but I didn't actually feel as though Mo was really all that overly fond of his daughter. He must be, sure -- he knew his responsibility and took care of her, but we didn't get many scenes yielding evidence of tender father-daughter affection. The bad guys talk about how he's so besotted with his daughter so she's great bait for drawing him to Capricorn, and we're told (mostly by Meggie) how close they are, but the scenes in the book were mostly scenes where Mo is supposedly doing something out of character... using a stern voice or keeping secrets. His face was also supposed to be an open book, but unless it was just that confusion for all of this muddled him so much, I didn't see him as a very well-defined character with very obvious emotions. We're also told that the bag guys are evil but they didn't seem so bad to me. It's a case of their bark being worse than their bite. Was this because we were trying to spare kids from having nightmares? It's not like the whole book wasn't spent with characters running in fear. Or perhaps we were relying on the reader to be so appalled by the burning of a library... but that's not the same kind of evil as was attributed to Capricorn and Basta. Elinor's character has a different problem... she started out as a character who was much more abrasive in the beginning and ended up as someone we were supposed to love, but the switch didn't make much sense to me. Meggie is fairly strong as a twelve year old bookworm, so I don't find much fault with her character (aside from her name, which I want to be Maggie every time I write it out). As for Dustfinger... well, I think he got off lightly once you realize the extent of his betrayal. Hardly excusable, even if he's homesick and sad. I'm not quite sure why we still view him as a "good guy" in the end.

I was fidgety and somewhat annoyed through most of this book, and I read it over the course of two days (a) because even if it's thick, it's a kid's book and the type is large and (b) because I didn't want to spend more time on it. Things seemed only somewhat dark (and while you knew things would end well, the feeling of things was rather bleak in terms of landscape and lack of character banter) and I didn't get enough of a fall from grace feeling to believe the world was ever better than the one that included Capricorn. A reunion scene at the end of the book seemed to be a bit lacking, though everything ended with a tidy bow. Sure, it's a children's book, but I was under the impression that the writing was really trying to explain to kids that the world is dangerous beyond super-villains, and then everything seems a-okay? Hm. I have mixed feelings about cutting this book some slack given its intended audience, but I also feel like there's clearly talent in these pages, and so the issues I have seem the result of some sloppy ideas. We could have spent more time on character development and less time running through hills only to be captured again. Alas. I doubt I'll be reading the sequels to this one any time soon, but knowing me and my obsession with finishing things completely, I might end up doing so in the future. But in paperback -- at least I've learned my lesson there. ( )

Several notable works of German fantasy are books about books -- Die Unendliche Geschichte, Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher, and now Tintenherz. This one doesn't quite live up to those two, though. It's a fine story with interesting characters. The only problem is that it feels bloated; the same story could have been told in half as many words.

I should mention that I read German slowly, so I'm particularly sensitive to excessive length. But other novels in the language haven't given me that feeling to such an extent. There's just too much dialogue. Even when the protagonists are being pursued by the villains, they stop to debate their course of action.

The story is still a fascinating one. It presents the modern world, with the addition of just one magical feature, though that's quite a major one. The characters are interesting: The courageous twelve-year-old Meggie, her naive father Mo, the feisty Elinor, and the cowardly Staubfinger. The villains are distinctly on the cardboard side, but there's actually a reason for this.

In an important scene, Meggie undertakes a difficult task, but falters just before its completion, and Mo has to finish it for her. This is annoying and out of character; the accomplishment should have been given to Meggie, not handed off to Mo to do the last little bit of something whose planning he had no part in.

Long as the book is, there are some loose ends obviously left for the next book of the trilogy, Tintenblut. The book is flawed and requires patience but can be worth it.

Books-about-books are almost a genre unto themselves. While I mostly share their reverence for the majesty and magic of the printed word contained in a beautifully bound spine, they can cross over into fawning treacle. _Inkheart_ treads on both sides of that line, sometimes plucking the strings of my imagination and other times asking me to care merely because we're talking about books.

My indifference to _Inkheart_ stems from the protagonist's passive inaction. I kept hoping Meggie would have an idea, take some initiative, do anything other than be captured and rescued and hauled around like a sack of potatoes. ( )

Brilliant creative gem for those who passionately love the power of the printed word. A gripping fantasy that immediately becomes a real world. Beware the film version that fails to establish a consistent and shared accent for the father daughter speaking voices! ( )

The story was highly original and not at all what I was expected. I look forward to reading the sequels. ( )