Reckless

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jacob has uncovered the doorway to another world, hidden behind a mirror. It is a place of dark magic and enchanted objects, scheming dwarves and fearsome ogres, fairies born from water and men born from stone. Here, he hunts for treasure and seeks adventure in the company of Fox - a beautiful, shape­shifting girl, who guides and guards him. But now Jacob's younger brother has followed him into the mirrored world, and all that was freedom has turned to fear. Because a deadly curse has been spoken; and Jacob must risk his life to reverse it, before his brother is turned to stone forever... Revised and updated by Cornelia Funke, The Petrified Flesh is the first book in the thrilling Reckless series.

I show more RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Don't mistake "young adult" for "fluffy." This story of brothers, orphaned early in life by a father whose abandonment of them without a word also cost them their mother to her grief, as they find the "Mirrorworld" that their father vanished into...inside his study!

This is a portal fantasy, with a secondary world that resembles our own enough to be an alternate-history world except for the fact that magic works. "Austry" is the name of the Mirrorworld country the brothers, and their father before him, arrive in, not the Austria they leave behind. The family's disintegration, as abetted by the mirror, is not something that the hero Jacob is trying to fix or to escape, like Meg in A Wrinkle in Time or the Pevensies in The Chronicle of Narnia. Jacob's a young adult, he fled into Mirrorworld to find a place for himself not look for someone else. Of course he finds others...a bad father-figure but a good mentor in Albert Chanute, innkeeper and treasure hunter in Austry, a girlfriend of sorts in Fox the shapeshifting...fox. He's got a life as a treasure hunter! He's met the Empress six times! (But don't tell Chanute that, he's only met her three times for treasure-hunting and now he's past it, so there'd be jealousy and trouble.)

The stakes this secondary world introduces to us could not be higher. Jacob's treasure-hunting ways are threatened by the Goyls, put a gar- in front and you'll get it, finally having effective leadership and thus starting to win battles in the eternal war between humans and their kind. What matters about that is that Will, Jacob's brother, has been bitten by a Goyl and is suffering the inexorable fate of such: He's turning into the stone creature that we call a Goyl but, since he's human, he won't survive the change. He will be a stone human...dead, but still walking without his soul. And Jacob, whose running away to find a life in this other world, now can't figure out how to save Will...and his refusal to share knowledge of Mirrorworld with Will is what left him susceptible to the bite in the first place. Oh! Wait! That's not enough pressure, not enough baggage. Will's utterly innocent girlfriend Clara finds the mirror and enters Mirrorworld, too!

Now, let me not spend more time in Spoilerville than is necessary. Will and Clara are serious Mary Sues. The world happens to them. They're not possessed of Jacob's trove of information...and this is something he quite rightly blames himself for not imparting to his adoring little brother. He spends just enough time recognizing that he's set these conditions in motion, and the success or failure of Will's future life among the living not-Goyls is entirely on him.

Celeste/Fox surprised me as a character. Will is younger than Jacob and he has a blah girlfriend, but Jacob's magical girlfriend is...a real full-bodied relationship partner! I wasn't thinking that would work in a kid-aimed story. But this, with its neither dwelt-on nor avoided sexuality and its frank presentation of bodily suffering...Chanute's arm is lost for a singularly stupid reason, for example, but it's before the story we're being told now starts, and is reported not experienced...is part of the not-quite-adult storytelling world. I'd give this to any sixteen-year-old and expect them to feel positive about it. Not younger, though. The consequences of stupid actions aren't minimized!

But sometimes, stupid people just can't be forced to stop being stupid. Clara simply can not be made to see what is completely obvious to the meanest intelligence: She is NOT in her own birth-world anymore and can NOT act like she's out for a particularly strange walk there! It gets wearing, her insistence that Jacob act as though her world's rules still hold sway. And he, fool of a man that he is, keeps explaining and explaining why her way won't work! Because she's unwilling to learn!

But Jacob...he's fighting through death and resurrection, he's fighting enemies he knows are enemies as well as friends he doesn't know are worse than enemies..."Who makes peace when you can have victory?" muses one such...Jacob fights until the fabric of Mirrorworld finally delivers him the thing he's consistently asked for, demanded, begged to receive. The thing he's died inside and out to cause to happen.

He's received the gift of an ending.

What a lovely way to make your portal fantasy pop! Make it such that there is no more severe betrayal that can occur to anyone in this world. Give everyone an ending. Then, stand back and watch the fun begin!

So perfect for its intended audience, so much in accord with the end-of-adolescence access of adult emotions but without the perspective to manage them. This should take the world by storm, and I hope it will. show less

Jacob and Will grew up without a father as John Reckless disappeared one day without a word, and has never been heard of again. When Jacob was twelve, he discovered that the mirror in his father’s study opened the door to another world, one where magic and the characters from fairy tales are real. Spending more and more time in the Mirrorworld, and building up a reputation as one of the best treasure hunters, Jacob hasn’t been the big brother that Will needed. One day Jacob is careless and his younger brother follows him through the mirror, but is hit by a curse that slowly turns him into a Goyl, ferocious creatures with skin of stone. Will Jacob be able to save his brother, and what will be the price?

I have to admit that I’m a show more sucker for fairy tales, especially dark ones. Reading this book was like reading darker versions of the tales I loved as a child, and while the plotting and the characterisation were a little uneven (I felt that Clara in particular was quite pale and under-used), I loved the atmosphere and the set-up, and Jacob and Fox are such wonderfully complex characters that I took to them at once. Like all the best fairy tales, it manages to make valid statements about love, loyalty and trust, and though of course the ending was a little predictable, it was the how? that really mattered and the final pages did not disappoint, so much so that I had to order the follow-up volume, Fearless, immediately after finishing it. I’m sure I will return to this series again and again. show less

Summary: When Jacob Reckless was very young, his father disappeared. Once Jacob got a little older, he followed in his father's footsteps: disappearing into the mirror in his father's study, into the Mirrorworld, a world that is full of fairy tale creatures - both the good and the evil. One day, when he was 25, his younger brother Will followed him through the mirror, but he was quickly injured by the power of the Dark Fairy... and that injury is spreading, turning Will's skin into stone: the mark of a Goyl, a race of powerful and inhuman soldiers. Jacob is determined to find a cure for his brother, so they set off, accompanied by Clara, Will's girlfriend who followed him through the mirror, and Fox, a shape-shifter girl who has been show more Jacob's long-time companion inside the Mirrorworld. Along the way, they must face not only terrors from the darkest hearts of fairy tales, but also their own hopelessness and despair, for Will's humanity is slipping away, and their quest seems all but futile.

Review: Reckless is an great example of a book with a fantastic premise and tons of narrative possibilities, that nevertheless doesn't quite manage to live up to its potential. Funke has a knack for creating fairy-tale worlds out of the darkest materials possible, and while Inkworld was new, Mirrorworld is straight out of the Grimm Brothers (not coincidentally, also a Jacob & Will duo), with none of the Disney-fied sugar coating. It felt like stepping into the medieval Black Forest, and there's a broad suggestion that the Grimms created their stories out of their experiences in Mirrorworld, instead of the other way around. Hansel & Gretel and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and countless others all show up in Reckless, if not in person then certainly in thematic and plot elements. It's a bit of a mishmash, but it runs according to the familiar logic of fairy tales, so the result is a world both immediately familiar and terrifyingly foreign, and rife with possibilities for stories to tell.

And Jacob's story has the potential to be a good one. Its themes - of guilt and betrayal and obligation and family, and of how far those things can drive a person even when set against all better judgement and logic - are not only fairly unusual ones for children's fiction, but are also pretty dark in and of themselves, more so than would be suggested by the suggested pre-teen age range. Jacob's inner demons are just as powerful as the fairy-tale monsters he has to face, and it lends the story an emotional complexity I wasn't expecting.

Where Reckless fell short of its potential for me was that it didn't spend enough time exploring all of these complexities. It is a relatively short book (less than 7 hours of audio), and it is breathlessly fast-paced. Too much so, in fact; it was so fast-moving that it was easy to get a little lost, and difficult to keep tabs on how the characters had gotten from point A to point B in just a few minutes, and why. A lot of crucial details went by with minimal to no explanation, and I think Funke would have been better served by slowing down, and giving her characters - and her story - time to breathe and grow in between all of the action sequences. The basic materials of a great book are all there, but it seems like in trying to pitch the book towards a younger audience - a strange choice, given the ages of the characters, the nature of some of the themes, and the overall darkness of the story - Funke shortchanged the very things that would make it most interesting as a crossover read for adults. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: It's not without its flaws, but I think Reckless is still worth picking up for anyone who likes darker fairy tale retellings, or who enjoys Funke's imaginative world-building. show less

I was somewhat surprised by this book, mainly because it seems to be oriented toward an older audience than most of the novels I have read by this author. Though we get a glimpse of them as children, for the body of the novel the protagonists, Jacob and Will (and, yes, this book is chock full of Grimm references), are much older than those of books like 'Dragon Rider' and 'Inkheart'. The creatures of the MirrorWorld, into which these two young men have wandered, are often sinister and violent. That world itself is, as we discover, on the cusp of change, with a war ending and technologies shifting toward the industrial.

In many ways, this novel is melancholy. At times it feels like an elegy for the impossible -- the magic objects of show more Grimm's fairy tales are locked in the museums of Empresses and Emperors; the bright creatures of Fairyland are dirtied by clouds of coal smoke and the trappings of early modern life -- and all those things that we, the readers of childhood and adulthood, would expect to be wondrous and magical taste of a bitter reality. The characters in the novel, especially Jacob, perceive this in a variety of ways, but they do not fight it. In retrospect, that feels frustrating, but it is a part of the grittier portrait within which Funke is working here.

I suspect that many readers who are used to the more hopeful worlds in Ms. Funke's other novels may be disappointed by this book's darkness. The climactic scene, while I won't give it away, is startlingly bleak -- it offers an unheroic consequence to an impossible choice -- and the end, which leaves the door open for further installments, is only barely hopeful.

For me, though, the novel worked. I found in it a sense of disillusionment that seems to be appropriate for a teen audience -- an age where the stuff of edited nursery fairy tales has become entirely too unlikely and the world seems tainted anyway -- and that was consistent with the quest plot and the finely woven details that clothed it. I was not composing a review as I read -- a sign of a truly engaging story -- and I felt the emotional context strongly, especially in that climactic scene.

Bottom line: I liked this one, but I suspect that some others will strongly dislike it, especially if they have approached it with very different expectations. show less

Jacob Reckless hasn’t felt at home in our world for twelve years. His haven in found beyond the mirror in his father’s study; where people live in little villages and cottages, monsters are common talk amongst the town-folk, stone men rule and push for power, fairies are dark and deceptive, and the Empress of Austry is a treasure-hunter. Jacob himself is a treasure-hunter, often working for Her Majesty to find her desires – a wishing table, a glass slipper, a golden ball. Jacob lives here most of the time, lying to his brother that he is going on vacation, a business trip, a trip to see a friend in need. He loves his brother, but too much pain lies outside of the mirror, where both of his parents are dead and his life is falling show more apart. And all is well on this side of the mirror. It is dangerous, yes, but Jacob has nothing to lose… Or so he thinks. Because of a simple mistake, Jacob’s brother Will has followed him over. And what’s worse is Will has been clawed by a stone man, a Goyl, and now Will’s skin is slowly turning to stone. Jacob must do everything he can before his kind and gentle brother turns completely into a stone man, heart and all.

I’ve loved Cornelia Funke’s books ever since I read Inkheart “that fateful day” a few years ago. Since then, I’ve read everything of hers I can get my hands on. Almost every book has been absolutely incredible; only one has been a disappointment (Dragon Rider). I preordered Reckless six months ago, hoping it would be another classic like the Inkbooks…

In a way it was wonderful, and in a way it was not. I’ll list the bad first.
First thing: I didn’t love the translation. I wish wish wish Anthea Bell had translated this one (she translated the Inkbooks), but it was Oliver Latsch. I like his stuff, but sometimes his wording is funny and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Second thing: Cornelia’s books may be labled as “children’s books”, but don’t believe it. I can’t imagine letting my child read this book. I think a good age to start at is 15. For one this is a very dark story (much of it is derived from the Grimm’s fairytales); it also has some sensual scenes invovling men and the fairies they have fallen in love with. The fairies, as stated before, are dark and deceptive, but also very seductive. Jacob and the king of the Goyl love two different fairies, both of whom aren’t always faithful.

And then comes the good…
Cornelia is a master at weaving a great story, from start to finish. She draws power from folklore and her favorite stories, but she is also incredibly original. Reckless was just so. While it could have been a terrible retelling of Grimm’s fairytales (what it was built on and after), it was a wonderful example of taking from the classics without copying them. Another very good aspect of Reckless is that Cornelia is not afraid to give her characters pain. It is what real stories are made of, and this author definitely knows how to toy with her reader’s emotions for the characters by making them endure hardship. This is much of what kept me into the book the whole time. Sacrifice and hardship make books so much more real.

So, in all, I enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next one (she plans on writing at least two more books about Jacob Reckless and his world beyond the mirror). And while this is a novel worth reading (although not a classic in my opinion), it is not for everyone, especially not for children. show less

Diese und weitere Rezensionen findet ihr auf meinem Blog Anima Libri - Buchseele

Nun bin ich ja quasi von klein an mit Frau Funkes Werken aufgewachsen und ich kann mich beim besten Willen nicht daran erinnern, dass ich jemals ein Buch von ihr gelesen habe, dass mich nicht begeistert hat. Nun ja, das war bis ich den ersten Band von Reckless gelesen habe.

Ich liebe Märchen und eine Geschichte über zwei Brüder namens Jacob und Will, die im Land hinter dem Spiegel, dem Land der Märchen landen? Immer her damit! Tja, leider wurde da nichts draus. Zwar hat mich das Buch direkt in seinen Bann gezogen, doch es hat nicht lang gedauert, bevor ich Probleme mit dem Erzählstil bekommen habe.

Das größte Problem war, dass nicht immer klar war, wer show more eigentlich gerade die Geschichte erzählt, denn Perspektivwechsel waren nicht immer eindeutig als solche gekennzeichnet, was den Lesefluss enorm gestört hat.

Dazu kam ein generelles Problem mit den Charakteren: Eigentlich bin ich von Cornelia Funke Charaktere gewohnt, die in all ihrer Vielfalt und Einzigartigkeit ausgearbeitet sind. Die Charaktere in Reckless hingegen bleiben oft farblos und schemenhaft und es tauchen furchtbar viele Charaktere auf, deren Geschichte lediglich angeschnitten wird und die keinen weiteren Sinn zu haben scheinen, außer dass Frau Funke so mehr Märchen einbauen konnte.

In dem Begleitenden Märchenbuch „Mein Reckless Märchenbuch“ schreibt die Autorin im Vorwort, dass sie eigentlich gar keine Märchen mag, sich ihrem Bann aber trotzdem nicht entziehen konnte. Genauso wirkt Reckless leider auch. Irgendetwas fehlt, dieser besondere Funke, dieser Zauber, der in anderen Werken der Autorin steckt.

Dadurch wirkt das Buch, dessen Grundidee eigentlich wirklich gut ist, stellenweise etwas flach und konnte trotz – oder vielleicht auch gerade wegen – des wirklich sehr rasanten Handlungstempo und der faszinierenden Welt meine Aufmerksamkeit nicht durchgehend fesseln.

Dazu kommt, dass ich stellenweise einfach das Gefühl hatte, dass die Vorgeschichte fehlt. Zwischen dem Prolog, in dem Jacob den Spiegel entdeckt, und dem ersten Kapitel, in dem er bereits jede Realitätshaftung verloren hat, vergehen 12 Jahre voller Abenteuer, die der Leser lediglich anhand flüchtiger Erwähnungen erahnen kann.

Es wirkte teilweise, als hätte Frau Funke etwas in ihrer eigenen Geschichte verrannt und dadurch kann das Buch bei weitem nicht mit ihren anderen Werken mithalten. Trotzdem, die Geschichte hat Potential und ich freue mich auf den zweiten Band. show less

Ever since his father's disappearance, Jacob Reckless has looked out for his mother and younger brother, Will. One day while searching his father's office, young Jacob finds a mirror that brings him into a world where fairy tales are real - but much like those of another pair of brothers, the world can be dark and deadly. Twelve years later, Will follows his brother into the Mirrorworld, where he is attacked by the Goyl and begins turning into one of them, his skin becoming jade. Prophecies of the Jade Goyl say that he will make their king invincible, but Jacob will do everything in his power to save his brother from becoming one of them.

Ever since I read The Thief Lord, Cornelia Funke has been one of my go-to authors. Her worlds are show more sometimes dark but always compelling. The Mirrorworld has everything fearful from fairy tales, but the machinations, jealousy, and love of its characters make it seem as real as our own world where "happily ever after" rarely comes without a price. The ending leaves an opening for more books to come, and I hope that's the case. show less