The Germans really seem to like the idea of people being able to manipulate text. . . at least. . . if one only read this and the Inheart series that's what they'd think. I would have enjoyed this book more if the ending hadn't been so oddly contrived. . . it was as though the author felt the need to shoehorn in 8 different motifs. However. . . . because this is a work in translation, the awkwardness of the resolution might be attributed to the work of the translator. I found Amy's character to be fairly well done but her mother's character was a bit flat. ( )

Although there was a part in the middle that was a bit slow, I enjoyed reading this story. It is original, fun to read and I loved going on adventure with Amy. The ending was really fitting to the book, so this was very satisfying. ( )

This story is something I believe is/would be comforting to readers who adored stories like Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and Alice in Wonderland.

I adore the concept of the book jumpers and the ability to go in and out of stories. However, I did want it to be a more limited ability...perhaps to Amy alone or to Amy's family.

Early on, I had a two real complaints:
First, the span of the books recounted. I struggled a bit with the age of the main character and if it was feasible for her to want to read all the books mentioned in this book. The Jungle Book, Shakespeare, and Pride and Prejudice seemed a bit too scattered.
Second, the character development. Amy never really came alive to me as an empathetic character, but I'm okay with that in the end, because the plot itself was really strong.

The mystery around who was stealing pieces of stories is what really drove me through the plot. And I devoured this book in a single sitting.

I must say, I read a review with spoilers, and I'm happy I did. It actually brought some of the foreshadowing to light and made it a quicker read for me. If you don't mind that kind of thing, I suggest you look them up for this book.

Like I said, a comforting read for literature lovers. Also, it's almost a fairy tale retelling, but a totally different spin. ( )

I loved the concept of book jumping, the book characters interacting with each other, and the descriptions of jumping pages/margins read so well visually. The overall concept was great for book lovers.

However, the worldbuilding was like Swiss cheese. I never got a solid hold of how the book world worked. How often do characters need to replay their plot? Where's the balance between that and life in the margins? How quickly do changes to plots/characters happen across all editions of a story?

The pacing was often strange, just a noticeable hair off from smooth, both plot-wise and in character decision making, often devolving into internalizations that slowed things down. Also I never thought a climax could drag so much.

The worst part was the background presence of a character with an intellectual disability who existed only to provide "mysterious" and timely clues to the main characters.

The narrator of the audiobook did accents really well, but she added a weird lilt like she was trying to make every word dreamlike that was really annoying. ( )

My review of this book can be found on my Youtube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/s7LrDetBz-Y

Enjoy! ( )