Tilly and the Bookwanderers
Ratings20
Average rating3.9
Well... I like the idea of people being able to actually move in the books and interact with the characters.I wish I could. But when I start thinking about which book I'd visit, why and what I'd expect to happen... I mean... I have my literary crushes, but... why would they fall in love with me, instead, and what would happen then to the book and the story I love? Much better to let the heroine be my stand-in, or me live the love story through the heroine. Or visiting Middle Earth or Narnia? The “reality” wouldn't be as nice as it is sitting in a comfy chair wrapped in a soft blanket, with a cup of tea on the sideboard and a cat purring on my lap. No... I don't think I'd like to visit books or find a portal into a fantasy world. :-DI think I'd much rather WRITE about it...I found her idea of the first literary characters and their adventures rather boring and... you know, Anna's image of what and who these characters are isn't my image of them. This is one reason why I dislike newly written sequels to old classics, like all the Pride and Prejudice “sequels” or [b:Scarlett 73062 Scarlett Alexandra Ripley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1438534619l/73062.SY75.jpg 2103634]. (That one I especially hate. Margaret Mitchell described Scarlett very thoroughly in Gone With The Wind - she had pea-green eyes and BLACK hair. Alexandra Ripley writes her RED hair, and changes her character and nature, because “she didn't like Scarlett”. Dang it, woman! If you don't LIKE the character, don't f-ing write about her! The worst thing was that Alexandra Ripley made Scarlett GIVE TARA AWAY! Anyway, this isn't about Scarlett, this is about Tilly.)I think the book gets better after the midpoint, so perhaps it would have been better if they had cut half of the build-up. It didn't really even need Alice. I was hoping Alice was sent to fetch Tilly by Enoch, and they would have started book jumping, because Enoch obviously could... which to me made him a more interesting character than many others (if not all of them). Kind of Anne of Green Gables' villain effect :-D And then Anna had to keep him the villain, so... he was slightly mustache-twirling every now and then :-D On the other hand, I think Anna could have developed this story a bit longer. It would have been a better book with more editing and rewriting. I wish they had developed characters more. I suppose it's because this is a Middle-Grade novel, so people think it's not needed. And how did Tilly's mother recognize her? She's been living in the dang book for 10 years, the last she saw her daughter was when she was a baby. It's also quite interesting how Tilly actually was "made".
This was such a fun read! A book about a book shop and wandering in books? I'm in!
I'm definitely adding this to my list of favorite middle grade books. I am going to order the next one right now.
