3.5/5 stars
Viking, 2012
363 pages
Adult Literary Humor Fantasy
Seventh in the Thursday Next series
Source: Picked up at library.
Again we have ANOTHER Fforde book that is NOT the sequel to Shades of Grey. What? I'm not impatient or anything. And who can really be unhappy to have another installment with the delighful Thursday Next?
Previous book One of Our Thursdays Is Missing was quite possibly my favorite in the series (maybe second favorite after first book The Eyre Affair). That book was largely set in BookWorld and was full of zany adventures and a robot butler, who is possibly destroyed as he is not in this book (I hope he is still functioning but can't remember). This book is focusing on an older Thursday recovering from injuries sustained last book as well as her husband Landen and actually including her kids Tuesday, Friday, and Jenny in addition to the evil machinations of Goliath Corporation. Tuesday is trying to prevent a Smiting and Friday is dealing with the knowledge that he would have had a brilliant career in the ChronoGuard except that it was disbanded. Jenny does not actually exist; she is a mindworm put into their heads by Aornis Hades.
I had some trouble staying engaged with this book as I feel like it is slightly less literary than some of the other episodes. Thursday cannot read herself into books any more due to her injuries and Goliath's plots against her are as obscure as ever. However while I have previously enjoyed all the zaniness, this time it felt like too much. It all ties together-I can clearly see that Fforde knows what he's doing but it just didn't work for me this time.
Overall: Definitely a read for Thursday Next diehards (and you *must* read the previous books in order too) but it was a letdown for me.
Okay, I have not read any of these. I did, however, see a movie recently with a robot butler. Robot and Frank. My friend dragged me to see it, and it was actually very good!
ReplyDeleteHaven't read any of these, but the title is def unique.
ReplyDeleteBrandi from Blkosiner’s Book Blog
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ReplyDelete~ Ruby
Bookworm, I am right there with you. The whole Thursday Next series has been very uneven for me, with some books touching amazingness and some failing to entertain me almost entirely. This one was somewhere in the middle for me. I just thought it was disappointing that there was no Bookworld and there were less bookish characters. Thursday's decline, too, made me sad. Still, it was entertaining.
ReplyDeleteI should have guessed that the title meant Fforde ;) He is such a funny and strange writer
ReplyDelete