1. Summary
In the story, a fifteen year old girl named Delilah McPhee finds herself an interesting children's book about fairytales in which she strangely becomes attach to as she realized that both her and the main character of the story, Prince Oliver shared a few similarities. To her, she thought that if he were to be real, he'd understand her more than anyone else since neither of the two had a father figure growing up. One day, Delilah started to notice small changes with the books illustrations. She knew something strange was going on but it most definitely did not help when Prince Oliver, the book's main character began to speak to her out of no where. At first she thought there was something wrong with her but the Oliver assured her that he most definitely was real and needed help with getting him out of the book. Prince Oliver grew tired of having to repeat the same scenarios all over again whenever the book was opened so to him, he desperately needed a way to get out. At first no one was able to hear him no matter how hard he tried to communicate to readers, but all that changed when he was finally able to talk to Delilah. Ever since then, the two have been trying various of different ways for him to finally leave the story which caused them to become even more attached to each other. From trying to draw the Oliver into her world (only for him to come out as flat as a paper so that didn't work out), to drawing her into his world instead (but this happened without her approval at the time as he became selfish at the moment by just simply wanting her with him and didn't think about how she'd feel). Either way, it didn't work because right when the book opened, everything would restart. Delilah would have to come back to her world as she didn't belong in the book. They became desperate to the point where Delilah had to go see the author herself. She tried to talk the author to change the ending only for her to tell Delilah that there was nothing she could do to help. Though it was night time so the author was kind enough to let her stay the night instead of making her leave. Suddenly a man that looked exactly like Oliver came walking down the stairs. Without thinking, she ran to him only for him to tell her that he wasn't Oliver but was the author's son named Edgar. The author said that she wrote the story for her son when he was younger to kind of set an example of how she thought he'd look and overall be like when he would be older. So yes, Oliver was based off of Edgar and his story of not having a father figure grow up. Surprisingly, he grew up looking exactly like the character in his mother's fairytale book as well, except he thought he didn't have much of the same characteristics as he did. Later on, Delilah tried to see if Edgar was also able to hear Oliver. And to both of their surprise, he did. So he decided to help the two out with their task, but realized it didn't work. Delilah gave up for the night and ended up going to bed. Without her knowing, Edgar had a plan and told Oliver about it. He decided that it'd be better if they just switched lives instead. Edgar thought it was fine since the book was something his mom literally made for him, and even though Oliver had some doubts and felt a little bad for him, he decided to agree since it was his idea after all. The story basically ends with Delilah waking up to realize that both Oliver and Edgar have switched to the lives they both preferred and comfortably lived their happily ever after.
2. Theme
Reality. There were some points in the story where Delilah would begin to question on whether or not the things occurring to her were real or just a figment of her imagination. It makes sense really, anyone would find it hard to believe that a person was able to talk to a character from a book. There have also been countless times when Delilah would tell people (who she trusted at the moment of course) about her situation and how she was able to communicate with a book character. Unfortunately, majority of the time, only she was able to hear and no one else. Except for the time with Edgar of course.
3. Author's tone
Based on the author’s tone, I’ll take a guess and say that she’s the type of person to set almost everything aside to really focus on finishing up a task no matter what time of day it is. In other words, she may be a determined person. So basically she probably stays up day and night whenever she can to finish whatever work she has to do. Though I can’t be sure and I’m only using one of her characters to reflect on her personality but since Delilah was the kind to always want to get things right and done as soon as possible, the author Jodi Picoult could also have been the same way. Delilah literally had her best friend drive her all the way to the author (in the book of course) Jessamyn Jacobs at nighttime just so that she would be able to get Oliver out of the book. “Delilah it’s after midnight. And you’ve been talking to yourself the whole night,” Delilah’s mother said to her. Delilah was so determined to getting him out to the point where her mom was becoming worried, wondering why she has become overly obsessed with a children’s book. Since the author probably stays up to get her work done, she probably also drinks lots of coffee to keep her awake as much as possible, hopefully not too much though. She most likely does have breakfast though. If she really wanted to put in her best work (which I believe she did, the book had such an interesting plot as well), she probably usually have enough breakfast in the morning to keep her imagination running well to create stories that will interest readers.
4. Literary Techniques (5)
Five of the techniques I’ve noticed that have been used in this book are foreshadowing, POV (point of view), imagery, hyperbole, simile, and metaphor.
Foreshadowing
1) There was a time in the story when Delilah felt so confident when she was swimming and kept on going regardless the amount of people yelling her name as she thought that they were only cheering for her. She felt as if she was invincible. That is until she ended up hitting a girl named Allie McAndrews. After this she realized that them yelling for her was not because they were cheering on her, but was because they wanted her from creating any more mistakes.
2) Once when Delilah's mother was becoming worried for her daughter, she had a serious talk with her, making sure she was alright since she was already becoming to think that her daughter was becoming depressed due to how she has been acting the past few days. Slowly, she was hinting towards her daughter hinting that she wants to bring her daughter to a psychiatrist.
3) When Delilah went to the Author (in this story of course, not the one in real life) Jessamyn Jacobs, she said that Oliver looked exactly the way she imagined him to look like. This confused Delilah, because obviously he'd look the way she imagined him to look. But this scene was foreshadowing the existence of Edgar (her son) since Oliver was only based off of how Jessamyn imagined her son to look like once he'd grown older during the time she wrote the book.
POV (point of view)
1) We were always able to see Prince Oliver's point of view whenever he'd talk about how he'd wish he wasn't living in a story where he had to react every scenario for the rest of his life.
2) There were also many times when we'd see how Delilah would try figuring out how to help Oliver out with his problem from her point of view of course.
3) Delilah's point of view was shown again when she'd grow a little frustrated at the fact that no one else were able to hear Oliver but her.
Imagery
1) A part in the book was when Oliver had to memorize Delilah's room for one of their plans (which failed sadly). He had to memorize every little aspect of her room. From the color of her walls, to the single clip that were clipped to her bed. This was an example of imagery since Oliver had to go into deep details of her room in hopes for this plan to work.
2) When Delilah arrived Jessamyn's home, she described the place as it was "...painted the color of a plum, and all the windows have curtains drawn down to their black trim."
3) When Oliver visited Rapscullio's (the villian in the story Delilah is reading, but is actually a really nice guy) lair, he described one of his small rooms as something "...musty and slightly damp, with floor-to ceiling shelves carved out of gnarled walnut. Books are stacked and tucked and jumbled in piles. There are astronomy tomes and volumes about insect species and a whole shelf about Renaissance painters."
Hyperbole
1) Delilah told Jules, "Your parents are already gonna kill you for stealing your father's car." Obviously this was only an exaggeration since we all know that Jules would already be in deep trouble for doing such a thing.
2) "It must be worth a fortune." I see this as an exaggeration, as others who use this are basically saying that something is worth tons.
3) "When I'm talking to Oliver, I want to keep talking forever." In here, Jules is again, exaggerating since she obviously cannot talk to the same person forever.
Simile
1) "Jessamyn Jacob's house perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water, like a swimmer afraid to jump in."
2) "At the thought of that, my cheeks burn up like they're on fire."
3) "The colors are like jewels, ten times richer than they were before."
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