Audio Review: Off the Page (Between the Lines #2) by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer

If you remember I decided to try audio books when I drove to Branson back on Memorial Day weekend for a family vacation.  And the first book I tried was Between the Lines, which I loved, and decided maybe listening to audio books in my car might be something I really liked.  After listening to this sequel, I may now be addicted to audio books both in the car, as well as when I am walking at the park.

I have to say, I find myself really missing this world now that I'm done listening to it.  I find myself wanting to go back in and be with the characters and see what they are doing now.  As with the last book I love the characters and the dialogue and the whole story itself.  There were times I wanted to cry, and of course times I was laughing out loud, just as with the last book.  Again there is more than one narrator, three of the characters, well kind of four, have their own person narrating.  If you haven't read the first book, there might be some spoilers, although supposedly you don't have to read the first book to read this one, at least that is what I've heard people say.  And there is a pretty good recap at some point, from each of the characters in their own way.

Prince Oliver was able to come out of the book to be with Delilah, when Edgar, the son of Jessamyn Jacobs, the author of the fairy tale, decided to go in and make the book his own.  So Delilah and Oliver had to first convince Jessamyn to move to where Delilah lives. Then it was time for him to start school.  Delilah and her friend Jules had to do a lot of prepping for Oliver to try to prepare him for high school.  But Oliver, for the most part, kind of walks in and almost is instantly popular, a la the movie Encino Man.  At least that is kind of what I was reminded of as I listened to the story.  Things seem to be just about perfect.  Until Oliver's friendliness and popularity cause issues between him and Delilah, and Edgar's mom has an episode where she ends up in the hospital overnight. 

At first Edgar is excited to be in the story.  Until the other characters don't seem to like his space version of the story, and he has problems keeping them on task.  And soon other things start happening.  Like the book sending a message on its own asking Oliver to come back.  Then things start getting crazy.  Frump, who had been changed to a boy in Edgar's version of the story, starts changing back to a dog. When he tries to make a wish to have what he wants most, he ends up outside of the book with Oliver and Delilah, but still as a dog.  Delilah's dog Humphrey gets sent into the book in his place, where he can now talk.  But he's a dog still, not a boy in a dog's body like Frump was.  And then, well, Seraphima also wishes herself out of the book, to be with Frump.   When she does that, then Jules is sent into the book.  Now Jules and Edgar get to know each other.  And may have their own little romance going. 

Before the book is over, we will lose one beloved character.  Another will develop a deadly illness, new romances will break up, and there will be other tragedies. But this is a fairy tale, so there will be a happy ending, romantic and family both.  Although not all ends may be tied up as neatly as I'd like, I smiled throughout the whole ending, and as I said before, missed the characters when it was over.

I love, love, love this book and the one before.  If you haven't read these yet, you totally should.

Review: Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer (Audio book)

I did something I haven't done in a long time.  I listened to an audio book.  Thanks to Audible's free 30 day trial and Goodreads, I got two free downloads.  I decided to go ahead and use it as I was driving to Branson last weekend for my family vacation.  That's about a four to four and a half hour drive.  My CD player in my car no longer works.  I had satellite radio free for a week, but I get bored with the channels they let me use for free.  And, I'd been tired of using the music in my iTunes as I'd been doing that since my CD player first gave out.  So I decided to listen to a book, and when I picked my free books, this was one I picked because I'd wanted to read it ever since a student recommended it to me several years ago. And I liked that it had more than one person as the reader, having a couple characters that had their own reader.  I enjoyed the first book so much that I returned the other book I downloaded, and used my other free credit to download the sequel that just recently came out, and I'm currently listening to that in my car right now.

This is a book about characters in a book coming to life.  What they do when the book is closed.  You see, to the characters, the story itself is like a play they have to put on every time someone opens the book. But when the book is closed they have kind of their own lives. They're only able to do things that are there in the book, but they can be who they want to be within those parameters.  Also, the villain isn't really a villain, families aren't really families, and animals can talk.  Normally the readers don't ever see this as the characters rush to be in their places and do only what the story and pictures show them to do.  But in this book, one reader has noticed a change or two.  Her name is Delilah, and she is a girl in high school who found the book on a shelf, and decided to check it out.  She has kind of felt a connection with the main character in the book, Prince Oliver, even though it is a fairy tale picture book for younger readers.  The connection?  Well her father left her and her mother when she was younger.  Prince Oliver never knew his father because he died out trying to kill a dragon to save the kingdom on the day Oliver was born. 

Oliver isn't happy inside the book, he wants to do other things, wants to see what else there is in the world outside the book.  And he even really notices this new reader, thinks she is beautiful when she opens the book and sees her eyes and face.  He likes to play games in the sand with his best friend, Frump, who is a dog.  But we know that Frump used to be a boy around the age of the Prince before an evil spell turned him into a dog.  One day when they called to go to their places, Oliver doesn't get the game board scratched out of the sand, and Delilah notices it as something changed in the picture in the book.  And from there they just seem to figure out how to talk to each other and now Delilah wants to find a way to help Oliver. But talking to the book gets noticed by her mother and soon she had to prove she's not crazy.  And getting Oliver out of the book isn't going to be quite as easy as they'd  hoped. 

This book was a fun read.  There were parts as I listened that I chuckled at, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed it as I was reading it as well. So far I'm enjoying the second book on audio as well, although I think the voice of the Prince has changed, even though I thought it said it was the same reader.  I highly recommend either listening or reading this series if you haven't started yet.  It is my first venture into the world of Jodi Picoult books, and it probably won't lead to me picking up her other solo author books, but I am glad I chose to listen to this one.