I’ve only ever read Oliver Twist, Bleak House, and A Christmas Carol, but I now find myself looking forward to remedying that lack. It was a delightful inclusion that made me actually want to read more Dickens, especially David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Darcy and a plethora of Dickensian characters who make themselves known in this novel. We have Dorian Gray and Heathcliff, the White Witch from Narnia and Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Sherlock Holmes and five different incarnations of Mr. Whereas the characters in Inkheart came from an imaginary book of the same name, Parry used real books and real characters from them to populate her fictional cast. However, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep takes this concept a few steps further. That book also involves the reading out of fictional characters from their books. When I first started reading this book, I was strongly reminded of some of my favorite pieces of children’s fiction, most specifically Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. “That’s the danger of stories… They bring things into the world, and they can’t be put away again.” Their world is going to be changed forever if they can’t figure out a way to thwart what’s coming. He’s had to clean up Charley’s fictional messes a multitude of times throughout his life, but the current fictional mess they find themselves in is the zaniest and more far reaching, and frankly the most dangerous, that the Sutherland family has ever faced. That sounds like a dream come true for most bookworms, but it’s been a nightmare that Rob, Charley’s big brother and our first person perspective character, has spent his life trying to avoid. Imagine being able to read out your favorite character from a story and have an actual conversation with them.

But if you’re Charles Sutherland, sometimes you inadvertently facilitate the escape of fictional characters into the real world. Sometimes you just need to escape into a good book. I wish I could tell better where stories end and life begins. Or if they’re not fair, they’re not fair with purpose.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher (Orbit US/Redhook) in exchange for an honest review.īut stories are. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G.

Uriah heep fictional character