The Girl of Ink and Stars

Whew! That was a ride!

This is an action-packed middle grade adventure story that does not stop moving the entire time. I almost felt like I was holding my breath the whole time too. It's set on the fictional island of Joya and follows a girl named Isabella, a cartographer's daughter, on an epic journey to find her missing best friend and in the process save the island from the resurfacing of an ancient myth that is found to be very real and very dangerous.

This is adventure and storytelling at its finest, but I also found it to be darker than I was expecting. Slight spoiler - there is a fire demon that reawakens, and it's intense. More intense than I like to read in general, much less in a middle grade book. So if that kind of darkness makes you uncomfortable, I would stay away from this one. Otherwise, it's an adrenaline-packed adventure with some cool cartography bits that I enjoyed.

This book is written so beautifully and mystical that I know my ‘middle grade' self would not have been able to appreciate so I am so glad I read it now. I thought everything about this was beautiful from the characters to the plot. It is only a short book so I do not expect a lot of world building or character development for characters that aren't essential and therefore I was able to just sit down and read this and take in all the small pleasures it gave me. I think that different style of books need different criteria and so therefore this book gets 5 stars as it hits all the things needed for a middle grade and a short story.

DNF at 51%

This started with such promise. I thought I was going to love the characters and plot but honestly I'm just bored. The problem may be that I went into this with the mind set that it would have a fairytale feel and I was disappointed. I definitely agree that this is for children through to adults but it's not for me.

This book is beautiful aesthetically, but there wasn't much there in it for me. There's little to no world building going on, despite the fact that it's so focused on maps, and that makes it really confusing. No characters really get any development, and/or (worse) die and come back with no clear explanation. The story is very inconsistent in tempo, and I honestly fell asleep several times during the slower parts.
I think the concept and the idea was definitely there, but it was just not executed well.
Maybe for quite young or inexperienced readers.