So, this is a sequel to Inkheart. It's long. Very long. There are big chunks I'd edit and discard. However, in the end, it's a good story: the 'real world' characters all end up inside the book--the original book, not the one by Funke--Inkspell, where they find Dustfinger and almost all of the original cast back in place, along with Fenolio who is the actual author of Inkheart. Confused yet?
You really need to read the first book first to follow all of this one; there is an awful lot of back-referring. This is also one of the few books ostensibly for children in which there are no characters that are All Good, though there are several who are All Evil. Even the heroes are conflicted and do some pretty Bad, or at best Stupid, things. It's very realistic in that way--which is quite weird to say in a fantasy novel.
By the end, some of the people you didn't like in the beginning are less unloveable, while those you sort of liked have tarnished a bit. Funke doesn't pull punches with her characters. She's especially hard on Fenolio, the writer, who is maddeningly egotistical but also hard to resist.
I must add that Brendan Fraser does an outstanding job narrating this book. The voices he gives the characters--a critical plot point for this book--are spot on, and he has fun with accents and tones that a lot of readers can't quite maintain. Yes, THAT Brendan Fraser.
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