The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser

As far as book covers go, this one is probably one of my absolute favorites.  I am so in love with everything about this cover – it’s so magical and swirly and beautiful!

Cover aside, let me just say that this book will capture the hearts of any bibliophile and make them look at stories in a completely new light.  The entire premise for this book is fantastic – two families who can literally jump into a book and interact with the characters, and live the story firsthand.  How amazing is that?  It’s every book lover’s dream, and once you start off reading this story, you’re going to be glued to it until the end.

“Stories were strange things.
One minute they were over: the next minute you simply turned back to the beginning and everything began again.”

Amy Lennox has dealt with a lot this year – her mother, Alexis, had relationship issues with her boyfriend, and he left her.  Amy herself dealt with some embarassment in high school at home, involving some not-so-flattering pictures going around.  Needless to say, when Amy and Alexis decided to leave their home in Germany and head to Amy’s grandmother’s home in Scotland, Amy is not exactly bummed to be leaving.  In fact, she is looking forward to getting away from things for a while and leaving those bad memories behind.

However, when Amy and Alexis get there, things seem to be a bit tense between Alexis and her mother, Lady Mairead.  When Lady Mairead insists that Amy attend special “classes” and spend a lot of her time reading while there, Amy is confused as to why this would bother Alexis so much.  After all, Amy is already a book worm and enjoys reading very much (there’s even a scene in the beginning of the book when they are packing, and Amy is sad to leave her books behind).  Amy decides to check out the lessons, where she meets Betsy and Will – and finds out that they, like her, are members of two families who are able to “jump” into books.  Amy thinks the whole thing is a little crazy, but when she chooses her book, The Jungle Book, and jumps into it, everything she has ever known changes.

Tasked with making sure everything in the story is in order and that the characters are all behaving correctly, Amy find herself wandering off and talking to characters in other books as well, despite the fact that she is supposed to stay in her assigned book.  When she pairs up with other characters and starts noticing that certain stories are not going the way they are supposed to (such as the white rabbit disappearing in Alice in Wonderland, thus preventing the other characters from going on with the story), Amy enlists the help of Will to try and figure out what’s going on the book world.  It turns out, someone is jumping into books and stealing ideas, which are ruining all of the other stories.  But why?  And who is behind it?

This book has such a fun premise that will appeal to book lovers everywhere.  It was incredibly entertaining, and you can tell that the author put a lot of time and thought into the book.  The world building in this novel was simply incredible, and I was really surprised with how I managed to feel like I, too, had jumped into these books with Amy.  The way the stories and characters in the stories were described was definitely something that made the book; I mean, if there wasn’t any thought put into a book about jumping into books, it would have been a disappointment, but there was just so much stuff in here.

“It was full of whispered words, the lure of stories waiting to be read, a rustle of promise that hung in the air.  How many adventures were hidden here in paper and ink, how many great love stories, how many epic battles?”

Amy’s love for books is refreshing and really helped me to connect to her character even more.

Parts of the book were slow at times, but not the boring kind of slow that put you to sleep or anything.  They were building up the mystery and making it more exciting to see what happened next. 

The one thing I did have a problem with in the book was the fact that it seemed like a few things went unanswered.  For example, in the book when Amy is learning how to jump, her teacher says that only family members of a certain age are able to jump into the book world…but there’s never any mention as to why that is.  I don’t know why it irked me that there was no reasoning behind it, but it just seemed like one of those things that I was supposed to accept as being fact without any explanation (I’m really big on explanations when it comes to fantasy books…I just like to know why something has to be the way it is, I guess).

The Book Jumper is full of surprises and interesting plot twists, and is sure to keep you entertained and eager to see what happens next.

The ending of this one wasn’t really what I was expecting, either, but it really wrapped up the general plot of the story and was quite fitting.

This is a solid read for those who enjoy fantasy, mystery, or well, books in general.

I’ll admit, I really wish I had Amy’s ability to jump into books…I’d probably never want to come back to the real world!