The Book Jumper, a review

The lovely Kari from Kar-ing for Books gifted me The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser, which to me could be described as a YA fantasy version of Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde. Essentially, people can travel into books, they’re supposed to look after the book characters but (of course) things go wrong.

This book was so much fun! We follow a 16 year old German girl who is going with her Scottish mother back to her mother’s home island after a horrible time for them both back home in Germany. When they get to the island it’s revealed to Amy that the younger people from her family can jump inside of literature and she is introduced to this world.

The book was so much fun! I really loved how the plot twist was worked into the story and it was really fun for me to read this concept from a different authors perspective and from less of a British point of view. I loved the setting of the Scottish island and the warring families, as well as learning more about Amy’s mother and her childhood on this island.

Unfortunately I did think that this book wrapped up far too succinctly at the very end. I can’t say too much because, obviously, spoilers. But people didn’t discuss the reveals that were given despite them potentially holding so many explanations, and they also glossed over the acceptance of a major ending event. I can’t believe there was no transitional period between how things had been and how they are at the end of the book. It seemed super rushed and quite unrealistic.

Despite this ending having a few issues I really did enjoy the reading process. I found this book super difficult to put down and ended up reading most of it all in one day! The translated writing is just perfect for me. Gläser has written one other translated book, also literature related, and I definitely want to pick it up!

On CAWPILE I rated this: Characters: 8, Atmosphere: 7, Writing: 7, Plot: 7, Intrigue: 8, Logic: 7. and Enjoyment: 8 which gives a 7.43 score and a 4* rating.

Highlight here for trigger warnings: grief, fire, injury detail, death, infidelity.

I always love reading translated books (Gläser is German) and I’m so glad I’ve found another author that I enjoy the writing style of. Have you read either of Gläser’s translated books (or her books in German if you read German!)? If so please let me know what you thought of them!

My April TBR Hopefuls, 2022!

It’s that time of the month again! I’m picking out all the books I wanna read in the next month and this time round I’m using Olivia-Savannah’s All The World’s A Page readathon for the prompts!

I’ve linked Olivia’s video here which tells you more about the prompts and the readathon, please do go check her out if you haven’t already because she’s a wonderful human.

Now I’m going to delve into the books! This time round? It’s just gunna be a list, I hope you don’t mind. I’ve got my tbr video going up in an hour on my YouTube channel if you do want more details on the books.

I want to listen to Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M Valente which I heard about from Kayla from BooksAndLala reading it a while back now. It’s supposed to have Stepford Wives vibes.

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren was sent to me by the wonderful Veronica’s Shelf and I’m excited for this short Swedish classic.

One I was sent by Caitlyn from Mad Cheshire Rabbit for this Christmas past is Natives by Akala, I’ve been enjoying reading at least one non-fiction each month so far and I want to continue that.

The lovely Kari-ng for Books sent me The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser and I’m 100% here for diving into books in a setting mixed between Germany and Scotland (and it’s translated from German too).

Now that I’m up to date in the Skulduggery Pleasant series, I want to read the Grimoire by Derek Landy before I read the final novel!

And on that note, Until the End by Derek Landy, the last SP novel, is released on the 14th of April and you best believe I’ve got it pre-ordered! So of course I’ll be reading that!

The Illumicrate read for April is Gallant by V.E. Schwab and I’m looking forward to trying out some more from this author after reading a book from her in March.

Then a book that I’ve put on my tbr but I won’t be mad if I can’t get to it? Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley. It doesn’t fit any of the prompts for All The World’s A Page (that I’ve checked) but Kar-ing for Books gifted this to me recently and I’m just super excited for this feminist re-translation of the epic!

And then finally, I pulled a book out of my tbr jar in my YouTube video. So I need to read that too!

A fair few books, but at the same time they really aren’t that big. I think the biggest are the Skulduggery Pleasant books, and we all know I’ll fly through those. What are you wanting to read this month???