Between the Lines (book)

Co-written alongside her daughter Samantha Van Leer, Between the Lines is Jodi Picoult's first ever Young Adult book released in 2012. Picoult has since written a companion/sequel to Between the Lines, released in 2015, called Off the Page which continues the story of main characters bookworm Delilah, her punk-rocker best friend Jules and Delilah's fictional come-to-life prince Oliver.

Synopsis

A teenage bookworm and social outcast Delilah is obsessed with a children's fairytale book, mainly due to the handsome and good-hearted hero of the story, Prince Oliver. No one can understand Delilah's obsession with a book written for "little kids", not Delilah's divorced mother or her punk-rocker best friend Jules, who unlike Delilah, is an outcast by her own choosing. Delilah feels caught between her erratic family life and her loneliness at school: she loves her over-protective mother dearly but wishes for something more; she creates a vision of what her father must be like, as she has never known him. All she knows is he left when she was a baby and that he has his own life, his own family, on the opposite side of the country. Jules is the best friend anyone could ever ask for, but having the school's most popular and beautiful girl as your nemesis (Ally McAndrews) isn't fun, especially when Delilah accidentally breaks her nose during swim practice.

Delilah confides her worries to Prince Oliver, and is shocked beyond belief when he talks back.

Before long, Delilah and Oliver have forged a bond neither have experienced before; both feel the other understands them perfectly, and before they know it, they find themselves falling in love.

Between the Lines is filled with colourful characters from both worlds, including a superficial princess named Serephina who wants nothing more than to get her true love's kiss, a self-conscious noble steed named Socks, Oliver's best friend and bloodhound Frump and an author caught up in her own longing for the past.

Reception

Jodi Picoult's first venture at a book for tweens received enormous success and contrasted greatly from her previous controversial books for adults. It received 3.5 out of 5 on Goodreads and 4 out of 5 from Barnes & Noble.

About the author

Jodi Picoult is the author of twenty novels. Her most recent, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Sing You Home and House Rules, have all been number one on the Australian and New Zealand fiction bestseller lists. Jodi lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.