And now, to balance the less-than-cheery insights from the last post, I present to you the other book that I read recently.
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Grade: A
My love affair with The Eyre Affair has been going on for several years, ever since K— gifted me with a copy. I have never loved the sequels nearly as much, but the author’s inventiveness keeps bringing me back. If only he didn’t go into such detail about the inner workings of Bookworld, the place where he imagines all of Fiction’s characters “live” and act out the events of their respective stories. I don’t understand Bookworld, nor do I want to.
When Thursday Next took the inevitable plunge back into Bookworld in this, the fourth sequel, I thought, “Please, not again!” I persisted, however, and was rewarded for my patience. Thursday Next: First Among Sequels is fun, full of surprises, and has a sweet message that will resound with book-lovers. Of course, the story won’t make any sense if you haven’t read the other books in the series, but it’s no great hardship to read them. Trust me. I wish I could read them again during the Great Library Purge, but I know that they’ll pass the test, so I already went ahead and granted them permanent places on my bookshelf.