The Hiding Spot

Fantastic storytelling, a creative premise, and smart dialogue collide in Marissa Burt's Storybound. Una is a captivating main character that any young reader will identify with... and maybe even wish to switch places with. She's is a smart, sassy young girl that fits into the world of Story surprisingly well... though I have a feeling many bookish people would. I liked that Una quickly got over the "this isn't possible!" phase and moved into the "let's kick some butt" phase. Una - and the reader - leave reality entirely behind and welcome the fantastical world of Story with open arms!Storybound is compared to Inkheart, which I adore, and they do have similarities, but, for me, they had very different pacing and atmosphere. Storybound is a very fast-paced story with slow scenes primarily nonexistent. For readers that dislike wading through unnecessary detail, Storybound is a great fit.On the downside, I sometimes felt like parts of Storybound were confusing or didn't fit well. I think this was because of the pace... details were either being cut out or I was missing them as the story flew by. There was so much going on and so many new characters popping up that I sometimes struggled to understand why particular twists were necessary. By the end of the novel, I felt that there were many unresolved issues and the author was going to have a lot of explaining to do in subsequent novels. Hopefully young readers won't encounter the same confusion I did.In Storybound, Una spends most of her time with characters from fairy tales and I'd really like to learn more about the characters-in-training from other types of books as well. While Storybound mentioned many characters, it'd be great be introduced to a few other characters... add more children to Una's motley crew as she goes up against the villainous leaders of Story.Storybound was a fun read and I'm definitely curious to see what become of Una and the land of Story!