Hoy toca hablar de un libro middle-grade, porque de vez en cuando siempre está bien ver qué nos puede aportar la literatura que llega a los más pequeños. En este caso, además, se trataba de un libro con una premisa muy interesante: los personajes de un libro escapan del mismo para poder sobrevivir. Imaginaos si hicieran eso los de Sanderson o los de Abercrombie. Así pues, me sumergí en un libro que, esperaba, fuera ligero y relajado pero que tuviera un cierto mensaje detrás.

Y lo que me encontré me dejó patidifuso, porque la trama fue a los sitios más oscuros que me podía imaginar. Lo primero, no es un libro exactamente, sino un borrador, el sitio del que salen. Un borrador que nunca había visto la luz del sol porque nadie podía querer leer esa historia. Y conforme iba leyendo me asombraba los espacios tan oscuros que tocaba, además, desde la perspectiva más inocente que podía haber. Pero no solo eso, obviamente, los personajes vuelven en un determinado momento al libro y allí vemos cómo el mensaje, un mensaje bastante típico de "Solo tú puedes decidir cómo quieres actuar y quién quieres ser realmente", unido a un "nurture over nature" muy potente, se crea al hacer a la protagonista vivir dos vidas la que ella quiere y la que su personaje lleva al mismo tiempo. Digamos que la situación no es precisamente bonita.

Los personajes consiguen que esa situación tan compleja se transmita más fácilmente, centrándose en las emociones y en las situaciones a las que cada uno se enfrenta. Ayuda mucho ver el personaje de la escritora, aunque la deja en bastante mal lugar. Y es que quizá lo más gracioso del tema es cómo los personajes de la historia son tridimensionales mientras que la autora es bastante planita. Todo lo que sabes de ella es por lo que ella dice, no hay ningún momento en el que actúe según esas situaciones. Sin embargo, la chica protagonista muestra mucha más entereza y resolución a cada paso, así como esa lucha interna entre lo que esperan de ella y lo que ella quiere para sí misma.

El estilo ayuda bastante a la historia, si bien no le hubieran venido mal algunas descripciones del espacio más, llevando al lector rápidamente de un punto a otro. No hay ningún momento en que no parezca bien estructurado, lo que consigue que le cojas cariño a esa sencillez con la que intenta mostrarte el mundo, tanto el real como el ficticio. Otra cosa que también está muy bien es la forma en que los personajes se muestran ante el lector, con apenas unas pinceladas para que sea fácil identificarlos.

En definitiva, no es el mejor libro middle grade que os podéis encontrar, pero sí una buena forma de entender la metaliteratura así como los procesos de creación de los autores (aunque en este caso la autora emplee toda su oscuridad para crear). También me gusta bastante la forma en que se muestra la curiosidad típica de los niños y la búsqueda de la verdad.

I really liked this middle grade novel! The idea of characters taken out of a story was really cool and it was also the ground for some nice reflections about fiction, about why we write it and read it, and about agency.

The book even went kind of dark at times which is something I didn't expect from a MG novel but that pleasantly surprised me, to the point that I had to remind myself this was MG because in some parts it read like lower YA to me.

Anyway, I'm convinced that anyone could read this book and enjoy it! I for one kept thinking that I would have loved it as a kid so that's certainly a win because 10-12 year old me had good taste

A storybook character taken out of her own story because her parents didn't like the ending.

I liked the concept but not how the author initiated it. There were too many confusing twist and turns and the battle between hero and villain was blended so much I couldn't tell who was which. I'm still not quite sure who the heroes or the villains are.

Having said that this is a middle grade novel that is appropriate for all ages.

Book: Unwritten
Author: Tara Gilboy
Release Date: October 16th, 2018
Star Rating: 3/5
This is a Middle Grade book perfect for grades 4th-6th grade. I love that the main character Gracie is a female and someone who is not perfect. She will be a great influence on little girls around the world. 

I really loved the idea of this story within a story. Gracie wants to meet Gertrude Winters, an author that has written a world that has come to life. Gracie and her mom were part of the world but had escaped to live their lives the way they see fit, not how Gertrude wrote them. 
However, 12-year-old Gracie wants to know what Winters wrote about her and her family. Gracie has flashes of fire and sees a beautiful woman standing over her. Despite her mother's warnings Gracie went the author's book signing at their local bookstore and sets in motion a chain of events that bring her, her mother, and other characters from the storybook into the story world. 

 "Inside the story, Gracie struggles to navigate the blurred boundary between who she really is and the surprising things the author wrote about her. As the story moves toward its deadly climax, Gracie realizes she'll have to face a dark truth and figure out her own fairy-tale ending."

I loved the idea of this story but I do wish that the characters had more growth. They seemed a little one-dimensional. I feel like this could be a great series, but I am not sure if there will be a second book. 

Disclaimer: I received an advance copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! This book is a hybrid of Inkheart and The Hazel Wood, with a younger audience in mind. I enjoyed the emotional spectrum that was handled with expertise in this novel, as I often find younger books (for 12 year olds etc) tend to be poor in their management of this, so that is likely to be a selling point for parents and teachers. I think the plot was very well done, in the sense that it 'made sense' and was engaging. A fantastic novel, and sure to be a hit!

A story in which a character finds her way into the world of a book has enduring appeal, and I’m at the front of the line to read such adventures to my favorite imaginary places. So when I read the description of a story in which our young heroine escapes from the world of a book into our own, I was intrigued. Unwritten fulfils the promise of its premise with quirky, immediately sympathetic people whose personalities warp and evolve as they are revealed through the plot. Gracie and her (single, waitress) mother are exiles from a storybook world in which, Gracie has always been told, she dies. Our ordinary world is the only place they’re safe from the evil queen. They keep their heads down, trying to not attract any attention that might draw the queen to them.

When the author of the book comes to town to do a bookstore signing, Gracie defies her mother and sneaks into the store to find out more about her own story. “I don’t know,” says the author, “that book never worked, so I threw away the manuscript.”

A series of mishaps, catalyzed by Gracie’s act of rebellion, catapult her, her mother, the man who might be her deadbeat father, and her best friend and his parents, along with the author, into the storybook world. Just as she was warned, the story itself begins shaping each character according to how she has been written. Despite her best intentions, Gracie finds herself acting out her own plot line, not as the tragic victim but as the villain.

The way the book played with subjective versus consensus reality, not to mention a plot paced briskly enough to hold the attention of younger readers, was enough to carry me along, through twists and turns, star-crossed love stories, and questions about how much control any of us have over our destiny. Although it’s marketed as Middle Grade (Gracie is 12), it’s a fine, fast read for fantasy lovers of any age.

The usual disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book, but no one bribed me to say anything about it.

Unwritten by Tara Gilboy

YA/ Middle Grade Fantasy

Expected Publication Date: 16 October 2018

4/5 stars

Gracie Freeman is a seemingly normal 12 year old girl who lives in a small town with her mother. But she is haunted by nightmares and glimmers from another life, one in which she is a character in an unpublished fairytale. When her parents find out her fate in the story, they use a magic book to escape to the real world.

As she grows up, Gracie can’t help but wonder about who she is, and what was written about her in the story. So when the author, Gertrude Winters, is in town, Gracie seeks her out and sets in motion a chain of events that draws Gracie and other storybook characters back into the long forgotten tale.

As she navigates her way through the story, Gracie struggles with the boundary between fiction and reality; and between who she is, and the character Gertrude Winters wrote her to be.

Confession One: I dislike middle grade.

Confession Two: Unwritten is probably the best middle grade novel I’ve read in years.

I finished Unwritten in a few hours. It was fairly short, but it was also addictive. I had to know what was going to happen!

What I Liked:

The quality of the writing. Despite being for a younger teenage audience, the writing was excellent. And it didn’t sound condescending, which I really hate.
The world building was seamless. It was certainly there, but it was quite subtle. There was enough detail for me to form a mental picture, but it wasn’t overdone.
The depth of the plot and backstory was impressive. The story was well crafted, and absolutely compelling.
The themes explored in Unwritten were intelligently executed. It explored identity issues, rising above expectations that other people have of you, as well as the nature of story and characters.
In terms of character development, it centres almost exclusively on Gracie. The result is that most of the other characters don’t get a lot of personal growth. That being said, I don’t think it was a big problem given the target audience.

Overall, I really enjoyed Unwritten, and I would happily recommend it to anyone who likes middle grade fantasy. Or fantasy full stop.

Huge thank you North Star Editions and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book!

Ok first of all, I need to preface this review by saying that this book is aimed at middle-grade children and being a grown woman in her 30s, I am definitely not the target audience. However, I’ve enjoyed middle-grade books in the past, which is why I requested this one; the description sounded really promising but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me.

I think most of the issues I had with this book can all be put down to the length of it. 200 pages is probably perfectly fine for the majority of young readers under 12 who don’t want to spend hours reading and don’t care about character development, world building, and pacing. But for anyone who cares about those things, this book is missing pretty much all of that and I feel like that’s mainly due to it being so short and not having enough space to go into detail.

Full (spoiler-y) review here: http://wmsreads.tumblr.com/post/175774283427

Unwritten was a very interesting story concept and a quick read. Tara Gilboy took the often done concept of a child going into a story and made it much more interesting by having someone first leave the story dimension and then wind up going back. However, I found that it took quite a while to understand why they had fled Bandoff in the first place.

The meat of the story is that young Gracie wants to meet Gertrude Winters, the author of the story that she and her family fled. She wants to better understand who her character is and why her mom had her leave. Her mother wants all of the past to stay in the past, or rather, in the story. Unfortunately, a simple mistake forces them back to Bandoff.

There were also a lot of interesting concepts of good vs evil, the idea that we all have a bit of villain inside of us, and the power and danger of knowing your story before you actually live it. While initially Gertrude Winters doesn't remember the story that Gracie came from, once taken into the story herself, she remembers that this story was written during a hard part of her life where she herself felt like the bad guy and that many around her had hurt her as well.

“Because what does it mean, really, to be labeled a villain? Nobody really thinks of herself as a villain. We are all the heroes in our own stories.”

It was a fun read at times, but on the younger spectrum of middle grade (if you remember that middle grade doesn't always mean middle school).

I went into this book expecting a light-hearted, more fluffy fantasy experience. However, it went above that. It was complex enough for a middle-grade read, without leaving the reader behind. The concept of the story was interesting and well written. The characters, I found, were well written as well. Their actions made sense for what we knew about them and the world Tara Gilboy designed. There were cute moments and serious moments throughout the story. There were moments where you weren't exactly sure where Tara was going with it, but it all paid off in the end. The story was written so there was no cliffhanger, which is always nice, but Tara clearly left it open for another story to be written (which of course I would be fully on board for). The only fault I have with this book is that it almost seemed a little rushed at the end and I wanted to learn more about the "flashbacks" Gracie was having. Really, I wanted to actually read the original story Gracie and her family had come from (novella idea?).

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I believe this would be great for anyone who is looking for a fairytale story that isn't simply just another retelling. It would be great to read in the fall, even closer to Halloween (which is perfect for the release date).

**An e-copy of this book was provided to me by NetGalley for free in exchange for an honest review**

Oh man. I don't know if words can accurately describe how much I loved this book. I managed to read 78% of it in one sitting, and would have read it all had I not fallen asleep in the middle of reading it xD

I am so happy I took a chance at asking for a copy of this book to review. Once I read the description, I knew I had to give this book a chance. I really loved Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult which is a similar premise to this. I wasn't disappointed at all.

I do wish the book had been longer, but I can tell due to the ending that this book will have a sequel if this book does well. EVERYONE GO BUY THIS BOOK!!! I need a sequel.

I loved the element that people aren't always who you think they are, the characters had more depth to them than you originally see. Good and Evil isn't always so cut and dry, and sometimes, the villains are the most interesting characters.

What a great middle grade book! I really enjoyed the premise of the story. This is a perfect book for a parent and child to read together. I do not know if the author plans on making this a series, but the characters are so great that I would definitely read book 2.

My name is Gracie, and I should have trusted my mother. I now know I shouldn't have gone to the author's book-signing, and I shouldn't have let her sign the parchment. How was I to know she’d disappear? My mom wouldn't have been captured by Queen Cassandra, and I wouldn't have had to enter a portal into the storybook land of Bondoff. My mom told me the author had me killed by the queen in the original story, but I’ve now learned that I was the actual evil character. My behavior is being pulled by the story, but there’s some way for it to be rewritten. If not, my friend Walter will die a fiery death.

This book had a creative premise with Gracie and her mother escaping from inside a story by traveling to the "real world". She had disturbing dreams about Cassandra but didn't know much about her previous life. The author added a unique twist to the plot once the setting returned to Bondoff. The characters were controlled by the words previously written in the story, except for Cassandra and Gracie. This complicated things for Gracie, since her mom didn't remember anything about events outside the story. If I could change the book, I would have given examples of the queen’s evilness to build suspense. All of the characters said she was bad, but the worst example ended up not being true. I typically like to learn about characters by their own actions and words, so I wanted to see more about the queen. The plot was easy to read and moved along swiftly. Younger middle grade readers should love it!

So many of us bookworms dreamt to be in a different world, a book world. May it be as a student of Hogwarts, or finding the gateway to Narnia. What if we got to be a part of it only to discover that we are the villain of the story? What if you lead your life only to discover you are the VOLDEMORT, not Harry or Hermione like you hoped to be? What would you do if you find out you can not be anything else, you are supposed to act like the writer made you to be?

Gracie Freeman is a twelve-year-old teenager who lives with her mother. The only not so normal thing in her normal life is when she gets the glimmers of her formal life. Her formal life as in her life as a unpublished fairy tale books character, which she never got to read. Only thing she knew about her book life is that, her parents somehow learnt that she will die in that story, so they fled with her when she was just a baby. With the help of a magic book they took her out of the story to keep her safe. 

In the search of her true identity she seeks out the author and finds herself back in the story. Now that she has got to know who she really is, is that really who she is? Or its the way the author/the story wants her to be? Is there more to her that what the author seemed to portrait? Is she the villain? Or a Hero? Isn't every villain is a hero on her own story?? 

“Because what does it mean, really, to be labeled a villain? No one actually thinks of herself as a villain. We are all the heroes in our own stories.”

I loved the story. It got me thinking so many things! You will feel sad for Gracie, you will get frustrated, you will even hate her.. Than you will see her struggling with who she really is and who she is meant to be, and you will feel lost for her. 

Its a great middle-grade book. Throughly enjoyable, fast pacing and very thought-provoking.. I will definitely purchase a copy for my younger cousins <3 

Rating:
4.5 out of 5 Stars!!!

**I got this book from NetGalley and North Star Editions in exchange of an honest review. THANK YOU GUYS!!!

This STORY is SIMPLY SWEET!!!

Totally fun. This is such an entertaining read for various reasons:

The Premise:

This book follows Gracie, who is a fictional character from a book, but her parents succeeded in bringing her out into the real world after finding out about the ending. Look, I don’t know about you, but if that doesn’t sound interesting to you, then I’m not sure what does. I really like the idea behind this book, like, REALLY. That’s what actually caught my eye and made me wanna read this book as soon as possible, and I wasn’t disappointed AT ALL.

The Writing Style and the Story Pacing:

Not only is the writing style of this book pleasantly simple, but also the story is very fast-paced which maintains your interest throughout the whole book. There really wasn’t a time when I ever felt bored while reading this book. Whenever I sat down to read for a few minutes, I ended up reading 40+ pages, so I’m sure you can definitely fly through this book.

Overall, this is a very fun, quick and easy read, so if you’re looking for something to finish in one sitting, you’ll surely have to check this out. I highly recommend it.

I enjoyed this book even if it feels like it was too little (I think I expected way more from a 200 pages book). But the story was captivating, it wasn't really surprising overall and I just couldn't care about the characters, but I liked the fact it was a story within a story. That's a concept I like very much.

12 year old Gracie Freeman lives a normal life except for being a character in an unpublished fairy tale that she's never read. Upon learning that Gracie would die in the story her parents fled with her as a baby. Since then her mom has tried to protect her from Bondoff, the world in which the story took place. But Gracie wants to know her story so she seeks the author out. This puts into motion some crazy events that drag everyone back to Bondoff. Can Gracie figure out who she really is and how to make her story her own again?
This book is really cute and a great concept although it did seem predictable at times. The queen is evil, which most queens in books tend to be. I did wish we were told more about how the magic book in the story worked to transport the characters between the two worlds. They seemed to do it slightly differently each time and I was confused whether the person had to write their own name or just touch the page or book. It was a fairly quick read and I'm sure the targeted middle grade audience will love the adventure. While I found the cover interesting and the concept intriguing I do not see myself buying a finished copy of this book when it is released in September.
I received an advanced ebook version of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. While my review may seem a little harsh it is my honest opinion while reading this book. But I encourage readers to make their own opinions on reading this book and not solely go on my review in whether you read this book or not.

This was a super fast and fun middle grade. The story line was really unique. It was a simple read but nonetheless very entertaining.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from North Star Editions and Jolly Fish Press through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

“Because what does it mean, really, to be labeled a villain? Nobody really thinks of herself as a villain. We are all the heroes in our own stories.”

Have you ever wondered about the characters in a book? And the possibility that somewhere, maybe in another dimension, they are real?

In this beautifully written novel, Unwritten will literally take you to an adventure within the pages of a book.

The story is about twelve-year-old Gracie, who is actually a character from an unpublished story. She knows that her parents took out of the story into the real world to avoid her tragic ending. However, she can’t help wondering about what really happened to her story, but her mother refuses to tell her more details. As curious as a cat, she meets the author of her story, and that event leads to a series of unlucky events.

First of all, the book cover was really gorgeous and the synopsis got me hooked. I always have a soft spot in my heart for Middle Grade Books. I like the idea of how the main character is actually a fictional character from a story and somehow she is able to leave the story and now lives in the real world.

The plot is interesting and darkly twisted. It is exquisitely written, the pacing is consistently fast, and it is very easy to understand. I really like the conflict. It has been a long time since I read a book which the conflict is within oneself. The greatest villain in the story is not another person, but rather the main character herself. It was truly riveting how Gracie had to fight her fear of becoming the way her character was written while distinguishing her real memories from her story “glimmers.”

Gracie’s character is so real. It depicts how a 12-year-old child acts and thinks. Although she’s quite annoying and self-centered in the beginning, her character developed well throughout the story. Plus, the book gave a very interesting backstory of her.

The only problem that I had is the other characters should have been fleshed out, especially Walter and Cassandra.

Lastly, I like how the book gives a message that you are the author of your life — you are the only one who chooses whoever you want to be.

Overall, Unwritten is a surprisingly engrossing book. It is perfect for fans of fairy tales and magic regardless of age.

I gave this book 4/5 stars.

Fun story for young readers. The characters were great and the storyline unpredictable. Definitely would read another of her books.