Delilah is a bit of a loner who prefers spending her time in the school library with her head in a book—one book in particular. Between the Lines may be a fairy tale, but it feels real. Prince Oliver is brave, adventurous, and loving. He really speaks to Delilah.
And then one day Oliver actually speaks to her. Turns out, Oliver is more than a one-dimensional storybook prince. He’s a restless teen who feels trapped by his literary existence and hates that his entire life is predetermined. He’s sure there’s more for him out there in the real world, and Delilah might just be his key to freedom.
A romantic and charming story, this companion novel to Off the Page will make every reader believe in the fantastical power of fairy tales.
New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult recently teamed up with her daughter Samantha Van Leer to write the young adult fantasy romance novel Between the Lines, a story about a real girl and a prince from a fairy tale who fall in love. I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for a story like this. With fan-girling about fictional characters now the norm, it seems only fitting to have a book where the character reciprocates the crush. Or maybe that’s just me.
Like Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, the story’s main struggle is discovering a way to travel between the book world and the real world. But unlike Funke’s novel, Picoult’s tale is a romance and told from dual points of view, denoted by colorful text specific to Oliver, Delilah, and the storybook she reads. In addition to the struggle between worlds, the story raises the important points of accounting for other people’s feelings. What one person wants is not always the same as someone else’s wishes.
Entertaining and compelling, this story had me occupied for a solid day as I tore through the pages (not literally, there are pretty pictures and it would be a shame if those were damaged).
One of the things that I love about Between the Lines and ABC’s popular show Once Upon a Time is that both breathe new life into the age-old idea of frozen storylines, fleshing out the classic characters (or archetypes) with new layers.