The Unwritten Book Series: Book 1: The Unwritten Girl by James Bow

Books Completed: 28
Completion Date: February 2, 2009
Pages: 205
Publication Date: April 1, 2006

Reason for Reading: Sent the complete trilogy by the author. New Author Challenge. Canadian Challenge.

Rosemary Watson lives in the small town of Clarksbury, where news travels fast and gossip sticks around. Years before, her brother Theo suffered a nervous breakdown, and Rosemary, now entering junior high, is constantly teased about it. She wonders if she might go crazy like her brother, and she feels guilty for not being able to save him. She tries to hide in books, but even there she's uneasy: she can't stand to see characters suffer. She's happiest in the cool world of fact and figures.

Rosemary and Peter - the new kid in school with issues of his own - are thrown together, and soon find themselves on a life-or-death quest to rescue Rosemary's brother, who has lost himself in a book. With the help of Peter and her guide, faerie shape-shifter Puck, Rosemary must face the storybook perils of the Land of Fiction and learn to open her heart, before it is too late.

Have you ever wandered what happens to all the books that you abandon? I know that there are plenty of books through the run of a year that I either don't finish because I am not interested in them or because I get distracted by another book and forget to return to them. James Bow takes this idea and has apparently has created a trilogy based around it. So, what would happen if the books paused when you paused and never reached the conclusion? One interpretation of that idea is found in the pages of this book. Since I really enjoy books about books, I knew that I had to see what this trilogy was all about. It is a young adult trilogy, though, so keep that in mind.

I received this book in the mail yesterday and immediately decided to start it. I have other books on the go, but I was curious. I can be a bit picky about my young adult books, but this one wasn't so bad. It was not the best book I have ever read from the genre, but it was still a fun book. Rosemary and her friend Peter have to save her brother who has quite literally lost himself in a book. You find out the full details of that when you get into the book yourself. Rosemary's brother had a break-down a couple years ago, which is something that no one has really forgotten. This means that when Puck suddenly appears on the street one day, she feels like she has finally gone crazy like her brother. What does turn out is that she is about to start an adventure that will test the common roles of being a hero and make Rosemary face her fears.

I will be very interested to see what happens next! Where the book is short, I don't want to give too many details away because there won't be much point in reading it!