Simon & Schuster | June 26, 2012
This YA novel, written by the prolific and famous Picoult and her teenage daughter, Samantha, asks (on the flap and in every advertisement I've seen for it), "What happens when happily ever after...isn't?"
Premise: Oliver is the hero in a fairy tale book for children. Delilah is a high school student who doesn't fit in and becomes obsessed with the book. One day, Oliver speaks to her from the pages and together they try to figure out how to get him out of the story and into real life. See, it turns out that when you close a book, the characters get to do whatever they like. It's only when the book is opened that they must take their places and act the story out over and over again. Oliver is bored silly.
There's a love story, of course - Oliver and Delilah fall for each other even across the pages and with everyone in both their worlds thinking they've gone insane. Is the love story a plus or minus? Also, the ending and how everything is resolved struck me as a tiny bit bizarre.
Nothing was spared in the design. Full color plate illustrations, different color text for Oliver and Delilah's first-person chapters and another color for the actual text of the story book. Black and white silhouetted spot art throughout. I understand the cover - the girl is holding a book and a a fairy wand. It's fine, I guess, but I just think some of the art from the inside might've worked on the outside.
Samantha called her mother and said she had a good idea for a YA book, and so they wrote it together. I agree. It's a clever premise. And it's an okay read. You just might enjoy it!
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