I loved Inkheart so I wanted to read more by Cornelia Funke.

I loved this story and need more! I can't imagine Will staying in the human world for too long. And I HAVE to know what happens with Jacob and Fox.

I love Cornelia Funke because she shaped my childhood with the Inkheart books, therefore I went into this with high hopes and it fell a little flat for me. The story overall was intriguing I just wish there was more, it read on the younger side of YA more middle grade for me. Overall I enjoyed the premise I just wish it was executed a little better.

This is a phenomenal, fast-paced, action packed fantasy. Funke does not disappoint with the tale of Jacob and Will Reckless. I am a sucker for a good fairy tale, and I love that this first book sets up a world where all the fairy tales intertwine. Learning all the little intricacies of the different cities and types of magical beings really transports the reader and allows for an immersive experience without getting bogged down with too many descriptive details. I can’t wait to read what happens next!

Jacob Reckless has to save his brother. After years spent in the world hiding behind the other side of a mirror, apart from his family, years of avoiding the responsibilities of the normal world, his brother has found his way to him -- only to be met with a deadly curse. It’s a race against time for Jacob to find the cure that will prevent him losing his brother forever, to a fate worse than death, a fate as one of the emotionless, blindly loyal Goyl that serve the Goyl king. With dwarves and fairies, a human true love and a shapeshifting fox, there’s no shortage of adventures and obstacles to aid and to harm along Jacob’s way -- can he save his brother before it’s too late?

I have to admit, it was a struggle for me to finish this story. I wanted to love it -- a magical realm full of fairytales hiding behind a mirror? Sign me up! -- but I could not get into this book, no matter how hard I tried. It felt as if it was being written from a distance, an objective observer lurking above as the events unfolded, preventing me from truly connecting or caring about any of the characters. It seemed as if Jacob was motivated by obligation rather than love for his brother -- they have no true bond -- and that makes the story’s main plot point seem rather unnecessary.

I don’t know what age group this story is targeting. At first I assumed middle grade, in line with Funke’s Inkworld series, but the main character is revealed to be in his mid-twenties only a couple chapters in, and there are frequent (non-graphic) mentions of love and sex and relationships playing key roles in the tale. But the dialogue amongst these older characters is often quite childish and immature. It seems as though Funke was aiming for a timeless atmosphere that instead wound up feeling quite disjointed.

Things move SO QUICKLY. I found myself rereading paragraphs, even pages, on multiple occasions to try and understand what exactly was happening. Instead of explaining the world behind the mirror, the hows and whats and whys, you’re just tossed in and expected to keep up with context clues alone. Fine if the world of the story is something resembling our own; another matter entirely for a fantasy book.

All in all, lots of potential, perhaps a good read for the proper reader, but leaves a lot to be desired and an overall feeling of disappointment given what could have been.

Reckless I: The Petrified Flesh is a second edit of this book, which was good to know after reading the reviews of the original.

I didn’t quite fall in love with this book or the characters. I felt there needed to be more backstory to Jacob Reckless and the time behind the mirror. The story jumps right into Will being turned into a goyl and Jacob wanting to save him. It felt like I missed half a book as to why they were both there and how Will got hurt.

I also felt there was a missed opportunity with Will. Many times there could have been more context to how he was feeling and his reaction to everything. Instead it was focused on Jacob and what he wanted and his need to save his brother.

Although I did not fall in love I will still read the next books in the series to find out what happens next.

In case you are unaware, Inkheart by Cornelia Funke is my favourite book of all time. So, when I saw on NetGalley that she's releasing a new book called Reckless I: The Petrified Flesh, I was over the moon. I must have been living under a rock, though, because this book was originally released in 2010 under the title Reckless. The Petrified Flesh is a rewritten version of the original book.

Anyway.

What would you do if there was a magical mirror in your house? Jacob decides to go through it and build a life for himself in the world behind the mirror, collecting magical objects with his shape-shifting friend, Fox. But when his brother follows him through the mirror, things go sideways. How can Jacob save his brother from a curse with no cure?

Diving into this book felt a bit like coming home because I am so familiar with Cornelia Funke's writing style. She creates so many magical creatures in this book just like in Inkheart, which I loved.

But that's where my enjoyment stopped. I couldn't get attached to any of these characters, and I felt a bit betrayed by that because my favourite fictional character of all time is Dustfinger in Inkheart. I expected to be entranced and to fall in love with the characters in this book the same way, but I didn't.

The novel is hugely plot driven, and it feels like you're dropped into the middle of the action without any real reason to be invested in the characters. I kept waiting to feel something for them as I read, but there was no spark for me.

Maybe I'm just not the right audience for this series, or maybe my expectations were too high. Oh well.

Reckless I: The Petrified Flesh is a wonderful new YA fantasy book from Cornelia Funke. This is the same author who gave us The Inkheart trilogy, so you know you are in for a fun ride. The story follows Jacob on his quest through the mirror to help his brother who is turning into a jade Goyl. The main core of characters are very well-written. At times there does really enjoyed it and am thrilled that this will be a series.

The best part about this modern and dark fairy tale about a pair of brothers that use a mirror as a portal into another world, is that it actually felt like a fairy tale. I stopped reading several times just to marvel at how much it reminding me of my childhood spent reading fairy tales. Especially the beginning where you first journey with Jacob into the Mirrorworld. It gave me chills.

There were parts of this book that felt a little slow despite the non-stop action and the characters were mostly one dimensional. However, I loved Valiant the dwarf! Despite the typical fairy tale trope of dwarves being greedy, he was hysterical and really lit up every scene he was in. I hope we get to see more of him in the sequel.

I'd also like to see more of Fox and learn more about her. It felt like there was so much potential to her character but the book never quite got there.

While the ending works as a stand alone, I'm glad to hear there is more to this story. I can't wait to see what happens to Will now that he is no longer under the Darky Fairy's curse and also see if Jacob finds his father.

Welcome to a whole new world, ala Funke! This author has once again created a world that is as beautiful and enchanting as it is dark and dangerous. While I didn’t fall as deeply in love with the characters as I did those in the Inkheart trilogy, I nonetheless found myself fully invested in the tale. I’m looking forward immersing myself in the next installment.

Nooooope.
Just didn't like this one.
Unfortunate, because I loved Inkheart when I was a youngster. But this was 100% not for me.

DNF @15%

The story itself and the ideas behind it were positively brilliant. Jacob is likeable enough but Fox sold it for me. The writing fell a bit short and that made me rate this book only 4 stars. Otherwise, I'm interested in continuing the story.

i was unfortunately unable to finish this I got around 30% in and just couldn’t get myself into the story:(

Recieved via Edelweiss, so I will be reviewing on there as I can read all 3 from there. Thank you for the opportunity and I wish you and the author the best. Looking forward to reviewing this for you at a later date!

2/5 - redo of the printed book. New cover is phenomenal and gained my attention. I'm not sure why this was offered as an ARC when it came out in 2016. The cover did make me want to read it more than the original cover; however, I DNF'd the book simply because of the 2010s fantasy feel it had. I would have been more encouraged to read this had it undergone a change along with the cover.

Thank you for an ebook ARC in exchange for review.
The premise of what the story could be is very intriguing. Reading the synopsis prior to starting the book had me very interested. I’m sad the story jumped right into finding the mirror and we didn’t get a chance to know the characters before the turning to stone or finding the mirror.
Some of the details jumped around a lot and pieces of the story line were mentioned before explanations were given which left me at times confused/frustrated.

This book has me so conflicted. In a good way. There are times it jumps around a bit too often, making me lose track of where we are and which character is talking. The setting and plot is very interesting, once I goty footing, I feel in love with the old timey fairytale vibe this book gives off. Definitely worth a read!

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of The Petrified Flesh in exchange for an honest review.

I'm so confused! The Inkworld books were such an important part of me getting into reading fantasy but I somehow never stumbled upon the Mirrorworld books until seeing The Petrified Flesh up on Netgalley for its republication so I was the most excited to jump back into Cornelia Funke's writing style. I don't know if it's a shift in her writing or just a shift in myself as a reader, but I really, really couldn't get into the narration here. It's full of sentence fragments and I'm fairly sure it's stylistically supposed to be at least slightly confusing, but it just annoyed me and made it near impossible to get into anything here. I'm so frustrated because I can tell that there's some genuinely breathtaking world building beneath all the confusingness, but I can't justify saying I enjoyed this because I really struggled with it.

Cornelia Funke is a master at writing dark, fantastical tales. She is the author who first got me, as a child, into dark fairytales. Reckless is like the Inkheart trilogy in that it is dark, with few happy endings. However, unlike the Inkheart trilogy, Funke throws you into the story with very little backstory building.
Because we are just thrown into the story, we aren’t given an opportunity to know Will before his transformation. This hurt the characters in the story immensely.
While the writing was beautiful, the plot failed to maintain my interest. The stakes didn’t feel particularly high as we had no time to care for the characters. The world seemed so interesting and dark, the way the magic worked fascinating. However, the lack of fleshing out of the characters really affected my ability to enjoy it fully.
Full review will be on my blog on June 25th, 2021.

This book was okay. Not great, not horrible. It had the promise to be great, but really fell through on that. I felt like I was kind of shoved into this new world and expected to just know and accept everything, when I was really confused a lot of the times. I'm also a 28 year old woman, so if I'm confused about the world building, creatures, oddly put together sentences, I can't imagine a young reader would do that much better. I also felt little connection to the characters. They just didn't give me much background to connect with. It also felt like every plot point was do disjointed and rushed, which made connecting to the story overall harder. I'd be curious to know what happens next, but I also didn't like it enough to bother picking up the sequel.

Full of interesting creatures, magic, and danger--The Petrified Flesh - Reckless I is great read, but not my favorite of Cornelia Funks books. The characters are lacking depth and I feel like there needs to be a significantly more description. There is so much potential for this story, we all know what C.F. is capable of, so I'm hoping her next book has a bit more substance.

That all being said, the world, magic and everything in between in The Petrified Flesh is absolutely something you should try reading. I would love to be able to read this book in its native langue as I'm sure some of its sparkle gets lost in translation.