so i just finished inkdeath, and here are my assorted thoughts on it.

i had previously read both inkheart:

and inkspell:

and seen the inkheart movie:

and i was really excited to pick up inkdeath. i wanted to see how the whole saga would finish up. i could see a lot of story lines coming together nicely, building to a great climax. to start, inkheart set the stage well, building a world that was compelling, vivid and interesting. inkspell was a good second piece – it continued storylines, built tension, and was pretty packed with action. inkdeath didn’t start very well. in fact, it took me more than 200 pages to really get into it. for those pages, it felt more like a chore to read than a joy. but after that, i was pretty happy with the turnaround. almost within 1-2 short chapters, it got back to being exciting.

i think that there are a few things that i would have resolved differently, but that’s the author’s choice. i didn’t understand, for instance, why fenoglio and meggie didn’t conspire to write and read more to help resolve the main conflict. i felt like it was building in that direction with the broken carriage wheel, but then the distraction of the milksop’s soldiers and the giant just killed that possibility altogether. i liked that death couldn’t be fully controlled by words, and that was established early on, but it seemed that in the final battle, orpheus’ words just magically (and too conveniently) didn’t work anymore.

sadly, my last point is that the movie really didn’t live up to my hopes or expectations. that was unfortunate.