Off the Page Book Review

Synopsis:

Title – Off the Page (Website, Goodreads, Amazon, BarnsAndNoble)

Author – Jodi Picoult (Website, Goodreads) and Samantha Van Leer (Goodreads) 

Published – May 19th 2015

Classification – Young Adult Fiction

Summary – Delilah and Oliver are in love and want to spend time together….but Oliver is a character in a book. Delilah and Oliver find a way to bring Oliver into the real world, which of course brings adventures and complications.

Here is an excerpt from the novel: seventeen.com

Hear Oliver summarize his thoughts:

______________________________________________________________________

Thoughts:

To state the obvious, I picked up this book because Jodi Picoult was the author. I think the first book I picked up by Picoult was My Sister’s Keeper and, besides the heart-tugging plotline, I was awed by her flawless and engaging writing style. Hopefully I don’t have to pitch to you how good of an author Picoult is.

When I was able to pick this book up from the library, I dove right into the pages. This is why two things completely escaped my awareness:

First, I had no idea who Samantha Van Leer was – turns out that it’s Picoult’s daughter! She thought, “what happens to the characters when you close the book” and pitched the idea to her mother. To me, it seems like the idea of characters coming out of a book would be a common plot, but I have never read a book like this one yet.

Second, I had no idea that this book was a follow-up to Between the Lines. I clearly didn’t read the little text on the bottom of the cover image. Luckily this book can stand on its own, otherwise I would have been completely lost. That being said, the people at goodreads.com highly recommend reading Between the Lines first. Has anyone read Between the Lines? Comment below if you think I should pick it up.

One thing I thoroughly enjoyed while reading this book that I feel was a nice touch was that each character’s chapter was printed in a different color. I was reading text that was purple, blue, and green.

Anyway…

Although I was aware that the type of audience this book was geared toward is a younger age, I was able to still sympathize with and be moved by these characters. It was a cute storyline that made me laugh quite often. I do have to say, though, I was more interested in what was happening in the real world than in the book world.

Conclusion: While geared to a younger audience, a well-done piece of work.