Book Review | The Girl Of Ink And Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

I picked up 'The Girl Of Ink And Stars' in the bookshop without even knowing what it was. I was instantly drawn to it as the physical book itself is just absolutely beautiful from the cover to mapped end-pages to the illustrated borders of every page inside. Side-note – I'm so glad to have a British copy of this book, the American name is different for some reason and 'The Cartographer's Daughter' sounds nowhere near as magical. Also the book design is completely different too and way less pretty IMO.

The people of Joya are forbidden to leave the island, yet it's all that young Isabella dreams of. She has grown up listening to her Da's stories of the world and studying the maps that he drew whilst on his travels and is desperate to explore it for herself. When her classmate has been brutally murdered, her closest friend has disappeared and her father is imprisoned, Isabella is thrust into adventure. Her aim is to find her best friend and save her poor Da, but what else will she find on the other side of the island?

This story is a combination of magic, friendship and adventure. The plot was exciting, however it did take an unexpected turn towards the end. I mean this in the way that I felt it didn't really fit in with the rest of the book and found it quite jarring as it felt like a completely different type of adventure.  

The writing was good and the characters were like-able, (even the 'villain' wasn't that bad), but I feel that they were very two-dimensional and could have been a bit more fleshed out. I couldn't connect to Isabella because I felt like I just didn't know that much about her. I did enjoy the fact that the skills that she picked up from her father helped her along on her journey and it felt unique.

Overall this is a beautiful book containing a nice little story. I would recommend 'The Girl Of Ink And Stars' to children between of 8 and 12 years old. It was nice enough for a debut and looks wonderful on the shelf, but the story was quite forgettable and so I gave this book three out of five stars. 

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