**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS**
Sixteen-year-old Delilah is finally united with Oliver—a prince literally taken from the pages of a fairy tale. There are, however, complications now that Oliver has been able to enter the real world. To exist in Delilah’s world, Oliver must take the place of a regular boy. Enter Edgar, who agrees to take Oliver’s role in Delilah’s favorite book. In this multi-layered universe, the line between what is on the page and what is possible is blurred, but all must be resolved for the characters to live happily ever after. Includes twelve full-color illustrations, and black-and-white decorations throughout.
Full of humor and witty commentary about life, OFF THE PAGE is a stand-alone novel as well as a companion to the authors’ bestseller Between the Lines, and is perfect for readers looking for a fairy tale ending. Fans of Sarah Dessen and Meg Cabot are sure to appreciate this novel about love, romance, and relationships.
First, Off the Page is NOT a stand-alone novel. As much as I am indifferent about the first book (Between the Lines) you need those chapters to help understand the characters in Off the Page. Like every other sequel out there this book recaps what happened before and how all the characters are related but those one-liners are not enough to keep up with the ever-changing POVs in this book. Second, I am a HUGE Meg Cabot fan and I don't hate this book but I don't really 'appreciate' it either. I strongly disagree with whoever wrote this summary blurb.
Moving on, Off the Page starts where we left our characters at the end of Between the Lines: there was a happy ending and apparently that wasn't good enough. About halfway through Off the Page I started to wonder why this book even exists. Oliver and Delilah couldn't just live happily ever after? Especially considering nothing happens in the first 200-ish pages of this book. Oliver has to assimilate to high school (cue cliche of instant popularity because he's different yet so interesting) and Edgar is struggling with his choice of being the fairy tale's new main character/action hero. All of this has been done before (in one way or another) so I don't understand why we wasted half the book before getting to the actual conflict: the book wants Oliver back...which is again, predictable.
On top of the one-note-ness that is this sequel, Delilah is still her annoying loner self, feeling super insecure about everything while Oliver is just hanging out, doing a horrible job of convincing his author (Edgar's mother) that he IS Edgar. But I guess she is a bit preoccupied because of her *spoiler alert* CANCER!! I swear this book is just creating problems to solve instead of having an original, organic storyline.
So after a whole lot more of plot-fluffing our characters finally all get what they wanted...except Jules. Literally everyone gets a happy ending except the girl who is the loyal best friend and helps out whenever she can - no questions asked - yep, she gets screwed in the end. And the best part is, they all just accept that. Delilah understands more than anyone what fresh level of hell Jules is experiencing but does NOTHING ABOUT IT. SHE IS A HORRIBLE FRIEND! And as far as I know there isn't another spin off where Jules and Edgar can finally be together, so that's it. Apparently the only characters that matter are Delilah and Oliver. If those two could have been more accepting of the hand they were each dealt in life then everyone could have been spared additional and unnecessary suffering.
Also, the amount of plot holes is astounding! When the book ends, it seems like Edgar can be happy because his mom is totally healthy and they can live together forever. Literally forever - the book will NOT let them die. This seems ridiculous to me because obviously no one wants their mom to die of cancer, but life happens. Had there been no book-switch, Edgar would have had Jules to console him and help him move on with his life and they could have lived happily ever after...but nope! Edgar decides to live with his mom in a world he repeatedly said he didn't like when he was stuck in there the first time and this is just suddenly ok??
It also seems strange to me that the one real-life couple doesn't get to end up together...Jules and Edgar are both real people in the real world, but they have to spend the rest of their lives connecting through a fairy tale.
The blatantly obvious holes in this story frustrate me so for the sake of sanity I will stop pointing out all the flaws and just say one last thing: clearly I was never into fairy tales, but if they peak your interest then this is the book for you - it was NOT the book for me.
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