My summary:
Jacob and Will Restless' father disappear when the boys are young. Jacob is 12 at the time and he never gives up finding his dad, Jacob searches his dad's office and one day he finally finds a clue to what might have happened to his father. There's a magic mirror in his fathers office, inside that mirror a whole other word exists, a world filled with adventure and magical creatures.
Jacob escapes to this new world more and more often, leaving his brother and mother alone in our world. Soon he becomes one of the mirror worlds greatest treasure hunters, he is widely known for his skills. One day when Jacob steps into the mirror world Will sees him and follows into the mirror. Wills decision will change the life of the two brothers for ever. Will gets cursed by the Dark Fey and Jacob has to try and save him. How much is Jacob willing to go through to save his brother?
My thoughts:
Reckless is an easy read, the entire book is divided into short chapters which fits great with the packing of the story. Each chapter starts with a lovely drawing that represents something that happens in that particular chapter, I love me some pictures in a book it livens things up a bit.
The story starts out with confusing me, I didn't really understand anything but all of the sudden the adventure started. It felt kind of weird. One of the first things I noticed was how the story reminded me of Funke's book Inkheart, I guess it was the missing father that did it(if you haven't read Inkheart I should mention that the mother of the main character is missing in that book).
Listen to Cornelia Funke reading an excerpt from Reckless:
Reckless is filled with references and items form well know fairy tales, this works for the story to some extent but it also feels like an easy way out, taking so many things from some of the worlds best known tales. Still Funke manages to put her own impression on the elements she uses in Reckless. The story is full of trolls, faeries, elves, dvarfs, goyles and lots of other creatures. One of the creatures captured my interest a bit more than the others were a creature that reminded me very much of Johnny Depps character in Edward Scissorhands.
There is a lot going on in Reckless and the reader is introduced to many characters and gets to know a little information about many things and places that exists in the mirror world. It might be important to remember that this is the first book in a trilogy and that the author might use it to introduce us to the characters and the world building.
The cover:
I really like it. It is supposed to be the younger brother, Will, I guess with his golden eyes.
My rating of this book:
3 stars out of 5.
Want to know more?
Visit Cornelia Funke's fanpage
Visit Reckless own homepage
Check out Cornelia being interviewed about Reckless
Full disclosure:
Review copy from the Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm.
This book can be purchased from a number of local retailers and on-line book stores such as Amazon or The Book Depository(I'm not an affiliate of either). The latter store does by the way have free shipping to about 100 countries.
