Between the Lines

VOYA Fairy tales are just that: tales. But the characters in Between The Lines have their own lives when the book is closed. Oliver longs to escape his prescribed existence in the book, and Delilah is obsessed with Oliver's book. She reads it constantly because she feels a connection with Oliver since he too grew up without his father. One day Oliver realizes that Delilah can hear him, and they strike up a friendship. The two long to find a way for Oliver to leave the book. The first attempts backfire when only words will leave the book and every time the book is shut everything starts back at square one. Delilah's mother begins to think something is wrong because Delilah will not stop reading this fairy tale and is talking to the book. In a last-ditch effort, Delilah travels to the author's house to see if she can find a way to safely remove Oliver from the book. Picoult and her daughter, Van Leer, have created a multilayered universe where what is real is in the eye of the beholder. All at once, the reader is in the fairy tale, in the world of the book when it is closed, and outside the book. Delilah and Oliver allow the reader to suspend their realities and hope that Oliver finds a way to live outside his predestined world and be with the girl of his dreams. Reviewer: Barbara Allen