REVIEW: Die Seiten Der Welt by Kai Meyer

Die Seiten Der Welt
by Kai Meyer

Original name:
Die Seiten Der Welt
English possible name:
The Pages of the World
Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads
Published: September 25th, 2014
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis: “Every book has its secret…”
For several hundreds of years, the unlimited power of books was kept secret by bibliomantic society. Magic, traveling through time and space – this is only a small part of what books are capable of. Some books even allow you to alter the past…

Furia Salamandra Faerfax is a hereditary bibliomant, one of the most powerful magician in the ancient Rosenkreutz family. Her family has been hiding for years from the agents of Adamantine Academy because of the mistake commited in the past. The Faerfax family is hunting “empty” books that are capable of exterminating everything ever written on the Earth. But they have enemies much worse than the Academy, hungry for blood revenge… Furia loses everyone – her beloved father, her younger brother, all of her family. The only thing left for her is to fight.

Kai Meyer is a German author of YA fantasy, whose books were translated into 30 different languages, including English, Russian, French, Italian, Japanese, and Chinese. Some of his books were first published under the pen name Alexander Nix, later they were republished under his real name. Kai Meyer has written 11 book series and several standalone works.

Die Seiten Der Welt (possible English name The Pages of the World) is the first book of the series of the same name. The story revolves around Furia Salamandra Faerfax, a teenage girl that dreams of getting her own “soul” book to practice bibliomancy at its fullest, but faces a rude reality of her father being killed after a dangerous adventure of hunting “empty” books, and her little brother gets kidnapped by their long-time enemy that seeks the book Furia has in her possesion without knowing its true power/purpose. Now Furia has to fight on her own, find a way to rescue her little brother, and continue her father’s mission in order to restore the reputation of her lost family.

Okay, so…

I picked this book back in October 2016 when I was in Russia for my annual vacation. I saw the title and the cover (come on, look at this gorgeous thing!), opened at a random page and read something like: “We’ll fight with books”. Just it made me instantly buy this copy. Only a few days ago I got to that very page I opened randomly to see that it was merely a very short scene (but it was important for half of the story!)

The backbone of the story is pretty much cliche, nothing was really surprising in that, but I liked all the details of the story, it made the plot look exotic and unusual (you can especially feel that at the final chapters).

The only disadvantage of the book was lack of character development. I don’t say there wasn’t any at all, but I didn’t feel it as much as I wished it had. But then we still have two more books incoming, so I hope the blank spaces will be filled on time. But I really loved the relationship between Furia and Severin, I wish there will be more, and nevermind some cheesiness, because come on! Furia is just a teenager, and Severin seems like that ideal character from a classic book lol I really loved their interaction. Although only now I realise that they communicated the same way Harry and Ginny did with Tom Riddle in HP & tCoS (not sorry for this comparison), I really enjoyed those parts of the book. Simply, I also am fond of anything written, especially letters.

Just look how beautifully this book is printed. I love the font, I love the gap between lines (just enough for a pleasure read), and I love these pretty leaves/wings in the beginning of each chapter! For that only, I am ready to get the remaining two books in the series, and as I’ve been informed, the second part is already out in Russian, so I can’t wait until my friend sends me a copy!

Overall, you can definitely say from Meyer’s writing style that this is a YA book, even more like something between Middle Grade and YA, because it’s more for early teens, but contains enough violence to be stated as YA.

I really enjoyed this book after a long week of my book hangover, so I’m really interested in finishing this trilogy sooner or later (probably will put it on hold until the final book comes out in Russian, so I can read both parts without waiting in despair).

Good news for you guys – I’m finally moving onto reading ACOTAR! Will try commenting a lot on Twitter, so make sure you follow me there for all my Luna Lovegood’s kind of blabbering 😀

Much love,