An Old Blog Post Turned Into A Literary Essay

  Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Vanleer

The book Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Vanleer, involves a girl who is a very introverted 15 year-old girl, Delilah, who finds a magical book. The characters in the book are living, and Delilah has a connection with the main character Oliver who is a prince in the book. Oliver is part of a fairytale, and she is a real person in real life, and something magical happens when their worlds collide. The book has three different perspective, with each perspective, it gives you a deeper look into the characters to get to know them better. Also, Between the Lines has characteristic magical realism.

There are three perspectives written in this book. One is Delilah’s perspective, the other is Oliver’s, and the other is the fairytale that Oliver lives in as Delilah reads it. Having different perspectives is a literary device that helps the reader really apprehend the characters, the plot, and how the characters feel. For example, when Delilah discovers some sort of love connection between them, he doesn’t tell Oliver, but you know, because she thinks about it all the time. Also, the fact that Oliver is in a book, he feels that it is a bit weird, but she never tells this either. She never talks about how she feels since she is introspective. In addition, she only has one friends Jules, who isn’t that great about talking about feelings. Oliver’s perspective is really interesting because even though he is fictional character in a book, he is still a living being, and has emotions. He talks about his feelings and emotions, in his world, in his fairytale life. For example, he talks to his best friend who is a dog on the beach, in his book. The third perspective helps because it is a neutral setting. Even though it is Oliver’s world, his thoughts are only written on the page of his fairytale book [nothing about his feelings about Delilah]. And there is nothing about Delilah mention. It helps because even though it seems like there isn’t a perspective, there is because it is the readers. Clearly, the different perspectives help comprehend the story and help analyze the characters.

Magical realism, is when there is something magical happening with realistic characters. For example, Delilah is realistic person in the book [Between the Lines] but Oliver is a person in a fairytale. The magical part is that Oliver is alive, and that they meet, and have a love connection. Truthfully, that isn’t realistic, but it is books. The magical realism about these two people/characters in the book, help make the book unique. For example, when Delilah takes out a children’s book from the library, she would’ve never known the characters are alive if it weren’t for their odd love connection when she admires how heroic Olivier is portrayed. Magical realism is a literary device that is quite common, but most of the time the lives of two people’s worlds don’t meet the way they do in this book.

In conclusion, there are many distinctive literary devices used to help bring Oliver to life to Delilah, and help bring Delilah to life for the reader. A tangible feeling for the two of them is love, they describe it as though they feel it, like when Delilah holds the fairytale, she feels the love connection between them grow, and when they’re apart, she feels the connection weaken. The perspectives may perplex one, only in the way that you are reading a book about a girl reading a book that comes to life. An idea in the perspective’s of the characters is the concept of knowing if something is real. Delilah confides in Oliver how her life may not be real, [when Oliver said his isn’t] which is true to the reader, but to Delilah its real. The mystifying parts of book are explained with literary devices, even though there are some mysteries in the book, but sometimes that can be a good thing.