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Title | Between the Lines
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Author | Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer
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Cover Art | ---
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Illustrated By | Yvonne Gilbert, Scott M. Fischer
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Publisher | Simon & Shuster - 2013
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First Printing | Simon & Shuster - 2012
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Title | Off the Page
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Author | Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer
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Cover Art | Sue Blackwell
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Illustrated By | Yvonne Gilbert, Scott M. Fischer
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Publisher | Delacorte Press - 2015
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First Printing | Delacorte Press - 2015
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Category | Young Adult Fantasy
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Oliver, Delilah, Edgar, Jules
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Main Elements | Fairy tale
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Website | www.jodipicoult.com
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Between the Lines
What happens when happily ever after...isn't?
Delilah hates school as much as she loves books. In fact, there's one book in particular she can't get enough of. If anyone knew how many times she has read and reread the sweet little fairy tale she found in the library, especially the popular kids, she'd be sent to social Siberia...forever.
To Delilah, though, this fairy tale is more than just words on the page. Sure, there's a handsome (well, okay, hot) prince, and a castle, and an evil villain, but it feels as if there's something deeper going on. And one day Delilah finds out there is. Turns out, this Prince Charming is real, and a certain fifteen-year-old loner has caught his eye. But they're from two different worlds, and how can it ever possibly work?
Together with her daughter, Samantha van Leer, #1 New York Times bestselling authoer Jodi Picoult has written a classic fairy tale with a uniquely modern twist. Readers will be swept away by this story of a girl who crosses the border between reality and fantasy in a perilous search for her own happy ending.
Off the Page
Meant for each other...
Meet Oliver, a prince literally taken from the pages of a fairy tale and transported into the real world. Meet Delilah, the girl who wished Oliver into being. It's a miracle that seems perfect at first - but there are complications. To exist in Delilah's world, Oliver must take the place of a regular boy. Enter Edgar, who agrees to play Oliver's role in the pages of Delilah's favorite book. But just when it seems that the plan will work, everything gets turned upside down.
In this multilayered universe, the line between what's on the page and what's possible is blurred. Is there a way for everyone to live happily ever after?
Off the Page is a tender and appealing romantic novel filled with humour, adventure, and magical relationships. This companion to the authors' bestselling Between the Lines is its own fairy tale, sure to please anyone who has ever fallen in love with a character in a book - or simply with the joy of reading.
Though I'd heard of Jodi Picoult I'd never read any of her books before, including Between the Lines. And I'd highly recommend reading Between the Lines before reading Off the Page if you can. While I still really enjoyed the sequel I sometimes felt a little left out of not knowing what came before.
My favourite part was Picoult's and Van Leer's take on what it would be like to be a character inside a book. When no one is reading you could run between the pages, jumping over the margins and wandering the vast white wastelands of the title page. Everything is two dimensional, but at the same time you never really get hurt and can never really die, because everything just resets itself the next time someone opens the book. And how all the characters are actors, that what they are like while you read their scripted roles is very different from what goes on while you aren't looking.
Now not every book is perfect, and there were certain moments where I could no longer suspend my disbelief. In fantasy, there is the fantastical premise (i.e. characters in a book are alive and can interact with us), which the reader must accept and the writer must then mould into something believable. Now I could believe in the world inside the book, what I could not believe is Oliver pretending to be Edgar and successfully tricking Edgar's mother. And even more so, going to high school and taking a chemistry class and not even knowing what science is. He also aced his SAT's by making pictures of dragons with the little circles you fill in for your answers.
However the characters were complex, and interesting and presented with quite a few ethical dilemmas, for every happy ending there was a price to pay, and not everyone was to get their happy ending either. It was frustrating because you wanted everyone to end well, but even the reader has difficulty in deciding what the right thing to do is.
The book comes with some lovely illustrations, both coloured and black and white. And I must admit I can't recall another book where each character's POV was represented in a different font colour! It was little touches like that which gave the feel of a childhood fairy tale, while still being a young adult novel which can be enjoyed by anyone of any age.
And this is pretty hilarious - Prince Oliver's Adventures in the Real World. If you think the video is cute, I'm sure you'll enjoy the book.
July 2015
I couldn't wait to know how the story started, so I went out and bought Between the Lines. Again, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I read the two books in the right order, I had certain expectations of what I would find in this book based on what I read in the second, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it!
Once again, I love the illustrations, goes perfectly with the idea of children's fairytale that comes to life, and the fact the text for different speakers is in different colours. You might think reading in purple is hard on the eyes, but the font is large and clear. Overall its a lovely package (well, I kinda hate the cover, it could have been so much more).
I liked how not only does it jump between characters point of views, but the fairy tale in which Oliver lives is also interspersed (the second book kind of assumes you know the story), so you kind of get to read the original book while you're at it without it being dumped on you in the first few chapters in one chunk, at least enough of it to get the gist of the storyline.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed these, they were light, fun, cute, no annoying love triangles (well...sorta, but not really), the boy is neither bad nor a jerk, the girl isn't a helpless idiot nor obsessed about not being good enough for him, and its a lovely journey into all our childhood fantasies, about whether characters in a book can come to life, and can you fall in love with someone who is literaly (and literary) two dimensional!
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