Review: Fearless by Cornelia Funke

 age: YA
genre: fantasy, fairy tale
rating: 8/8 tentacles

Wonderful, dark, fun. Love the characters, love the plot, love the world. I was sad to reach the end of the book and hope the next in the series doesn't take another three years to come out. Because I want it right now. There's so much imagination in this series. And, FYI, this book is one example of a romance I can appreciate.

Spoilers for Reckless beyond this point. You have been warned.

Fearless picks up in the middle of Jacob's search to discover a cure for the fatal curse placed on him by the Red Fairy, the price he paid to save his brother. He has exhausted every magical item he can think of, except one: the Witch Slayer's Crossbow, which would bring its owner unlimited power. This item is Jacob's last hope, but his search is made more difficult by a competitor, a Goyl nicknamed "The Bastard." Jacob and Fox must race against time and surpass the efforts of the Goyl treasure hunter if they want to find the crossbow before the curse is fulfilled.

As in Reckless, the dark, fairy tale world creates a rich, endlessly intriguing backdrop. Jacob and Fox are fantastic, well-rounded, sympathetic characters and I'm rooting for them to end up together.

The reason I'm a fan of the romance in this book is because it's born out of genuine caring for the other person. It's not all about the burning gazes of sultry, golden eyes or swooning or rippling muscles. It's about trust and attachment and affection. And attraction too, but not ONLY attraction. Funke focuses on what I feel are the more important, more fulfilling parts of romance.

It's actually been a little while now since I've finished this book and thinking about it again is reminding me how excited I am about this series.  Now I'm itching to read Reckless and Fearless again.

This book's got everything going for it: great, imaginative setting; authentic characters; and a plot that moves at a consistent pace, keeps readers guessing, and leads to an even more exciting mystery that opens into what I'm sure will be the plot of the next book. Oh and the writing is gorgeous. Cornelia Funke is the best.

Review: Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke

genre: fantasy
age: children's
rating: 4/8 tentacles

Ghost Knight is a fun story filled with murderous ghosts, medieval history, and school children sneaking around ancient cathedrals and dark crumbling cemeteries in the dead of night (no pun intended). After behaving badly towards his mother's new boyfriend, Jon Whitcroft is sent off to boarding school, where four ominous ghostly figures call him by his mother's maiden name and threaten his life. His endeavors to escape them lead to a friendship with beautiful Ella, daughter of a local ghost tour guide, and together they work to solve the mystery of the ghosts' determination to hunt Jon.

Some of Cornelia Funke's other works (the Inkheart series, The Thief Lord, and Reckless) have become favorites of mine, but Ghost Knight just didn't measure up. I'm not sure if Funke was targeting a younger age group, but it lacked the complexity of her other works and failed to conjure up a vivid illusion. The story seemed a little hazy, which made it difficult for me to feel as if I was experiencing its unfolding events along with the characters. For example, Jon attends an old cathedral boarding school, but we hardly see any of this part of his life. We watch him sneaking out of his bedroom window at night and we witness brief, ultimately meaningless conversations between Jon and his roommates, but get nothing of life at a boarding school. I think the story needed this scenic backdrop, this context, to anchor it.  I suppose there is much more telling than showing.

Funke seems to leap from event to ghostly event with little build up between. Many opportunities to create suspense weren't taken advantage of. We're just told, "Here's this guy and this is what happened to him." There's very little mystery, nothing to keep us wondering. No drama, no build-up, no suspense. We are simply pelted with ghosts.

That's the thing I didn't like about this book. It's a light and entertaining read, but it led me to believe I was getting a ghost story, and I didn't. Ghost Knight was rushed. It was shallow. I never felt like I got to know anyone besides Jon and Funke failed to cultivate that eerie mood where fear creeps around you like a mist and it always seems that someone (or something) is just out of sight, watching and waiting. My favorite thing about ghost stories is the mystery, and Ghost Knight provided very little of this.