Tintenherz - Ink Heart
Aug. 8th, 2011 21:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_moonI finally finished this book! For some bloody reason, I kept losing it! Put it down in a bookbag to read to work, forget the book on my desk, finally bring it home 3 days later, put that (different) book bag down and cover it with laundry or other stuff... rinse and repeat.
The book in question is acclaimed German YA novel Tintenherz / Ink Heart by Cornelia Funke. I'd borrowed it a while ago from my dear Miko-chan, to read as one of several attempts to de-rust my language skills. Since Miko-chan is visiting me right now and will leave early on Wednesday - and tomorrow we're seeing Gackt - it was read under a bit of time pressure, if I put it like that.
However, the end of the book went by quickly. Since it is a YA novel, the language level wasn't very challenging to me; what I had trouble with is that about the first half of the book feels like characters just hurrying back and fort without anything much happening. I already knew the "secret" of Zauberzunge (Silver Tongue in English), that he could read out things and people from books and while I am not usually very spoiler-sensitive, that annoyed me. Especially since the characters didn't much grip me either. Meggie is a believable little girl, but not very captivating (or active, for much of the book), her father annoyed me, Staubfinger (Dustfinger) started off as the most interesting person in the book but then just went betrayer-no-wait-maybe-not for too long... Basically, the whole thing dragged. It also consists of like eleventyhundred (ok, maybe not) chapters, which sometimes feel like they appear just so Funke can have a nice little quote from a much better children's book at the beginning.
Once they've been captured by the villain the second time, iirc, things finally start moving and the end is not bad at all. But the journey there? Too slow; I'm not planning on reading the sequels unless I'm really bored.
Next to finish: the comic Five Star Stories which have to be returned on Friday, and then Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine!
The book in question is acclaimed German YA novel Tintenherz / Ink Heart by Cornelia Funke. I'd borrowed it a while ago from my dear Miko-chan, to read as one of several attempts to de-rust my language skills. Since Miko-chan is visiting me right now and will leave early on Wednesday - and tomorrow we're seeing Gackt - it was read under a bit of time pressure, if I put it like that.
However, the end of the book went by quickly. Since it is a YA novel, the language level wasn't very challenging to me; what I had trouble with is that about the first half of the book feels like characters just hurrying back and fort without anything much happening. I already knew the "secret" of Zauberzunge (Silver Tongue in English), that he could read out things and people from books and while I am not usually very spoiler-sensitive, that annoyed me. Especially since the characters didn't much grip me either. Meggie is a believable little girl, but not very captivating (or active, for much of the book), her father annoyed me, Staubfinger (Dustfinger) started off as the most interesting person in the book but then just went betrayer-no-wait-maybe-not for too long... Basically, the whole thing dragged. It also consists of like eleventyhundred (ok, maybe not) chapters, which sometimes feel like they appear just so Funke can have a nice little quote from a much better children's book at the beginning.
Once they've been captured by the villain the second time, iirc, things finally start moving and the end is not bad at all. But the journey there? Too slow; I'm not planning on reading the sequels unless I'm really bored.
Next to finish: the comic Five Star Stories which have to be returned on Friday, and then Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine!
