Isabella is a cartographer, taught by her father to navigate and plot a course by the stars and recreate the complexities of the world around her in ink. She and her Da live on Joya, an island which nobody is permitted to leave, ruled by the cold-hearted Governor. Despite its hardships, and the tragedies in Isabella’s past, there is plenty to love on her little island. But when her best friend disappears, Isabella will have to traverse the dangerous Forgotten Territories, confronting monsters and myths in search of a future for her home.

The Girl of Ink and Stars is the first novel by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, and it’s a strong opener for sure. Written for children or young teens, it lays out a story of courage and hope in the face of terrifying forces, led by a determined protagonist.

The descriptions in this book are gorgeous and wonderfully evocative; you really feel like you’re experiencing the world of the story along with Isabella. There isn’t a lot of time dedicated to world-building, really just enough to get the gist that you’re reading about a world with geographical similarities to ours, but this leaves more room for delving into the plot so I didn’t have any complaints on this front. What I do wish we’d seen a little more of was relationship building, or at least some laying of groundwork when it came to Isabella’s friendships.

I found the characters mostly appealing, and I thought Isabella’s relationship with her father was sweet. Clearly tinged with sadness over the people they’ve lost, but perhaps all the closer and more trusting for that. In contrast, I thought Isabella’s friendship with Lupe was pretty poorly illustrated, and there wasn’t really enough background to give their dramatic argument (a very early plot point) any real emotional weight.

The use of myth within the story layered really nicely with the events as they played out, and I always like the story-within-a-story thing (well, I say “always”, I have unfortunately seen it done incredibly poorly as well…) so I definitely appreciated the way Hargrave used this to provide context to the plot. Isabella’s stories were where most of the magic in this book was concentrated and, while I definitely could have seen a little more magic in the main story, I actually thought this worked well. Isabella believes in the myths she’s been told all her life, but the characters around her are somewhat less credulous. As the evil force within the island grows in strength, the magic becomes more prominent, and still Isabella seems to be the only one to recognise what’s truly going on. It isn’t overplayed, but it makes Isabella’s self-belief and trust in her father’s tales a nice thread running through the main plot.

For the most part the plot was fast-paced, sometimes a little too fast; some of the action sequences, particularly towards the end, were frenetic and confusing, and I found it difficult to keep a sense of place and scale as I was reading. Other than that issue though, I thought the pacing was a strength of the story. It covers a lot of ground quickly, moving smoothly between events and keeping the momentum up pretty consistently. It helps that the story is quite simple, with little to nothing in the way of sub-plots to keep up with.

On the whole, I enjoyed The Girl of Ink and Stars. I have read books with a similar target audience that I’ve enjoyed more, but I think this is a strong offering to middle grade/young adult fiction with a lot to recommend it. A beautifully written adventure, that doesn’t shy away from the dark side of myth; if you have a younger reader in your life who enjoys magical realism and adventure, along the lines of Spirited Away or Inkheart, this book would be an excellent choice for them.