Blerg. OK so they can't all be winners.
I read Cornelia Funke's earlier book, The Thief Lord, several years ago, and really enjoyed it. But the movie of one of her other books, Inkheart, was unwatchably bad, and it made me wonder if that was because of the book or the filmmakers.
I recently saw that she had a new series, the 'Mirrorworld' series, and that readers seemed to like it. I decided to give her another shot. I shouldn't have.
The book is a page turner, in that you really want it to end. The writing is flat and humorlessness and the characters are poorly written and skin deep. In fact, when the main character dies at the half-way point, (he gets revived, don't worry), you actually admire it for killing off such a boring guy that you didn't care about.
For a youth book, it was a little risque. I think it's written on about an 8th grade level but I don't think it's appropriate for it.
They worked in the whole 'all the Grimm fairy tales were real!' thing that the entire planet has done to death lately. It's about a guy's brother that crosses into a magical world but starts turning into one of the bad guys, a race of warriors made out of stone.
I don't think it added a single original thing to the fantasy genre. It had fairies, elves, trolls, dwarves, all of that. Why doesn't someone dream up a new cool magical creature that isn't based on the entire planet's pre-existing mythology?
In the end, he cures his brother but gets betrayed and only has a year left to live. Literally every single bad guy in the entire book survives. Why not just just end on a big red page that says in all caps 'I REALLY WANT THIS TO BECOME A NEW POPULAR BOOK SERIES'?
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