The third installation of Fforde's fantastic best selling series is a dynamite hit.
How's that for a high school newspaper lead?
In all seriousness, Fforde's creation of a literary world is ingenious and unsurprisingly fun to read. For literature lovers, this is an escape into the world of the characters we love and know, and even some characters that we hate, and others that haven't yet been published. The leading lady, Thursday Next, is an enterprising agent who began her career in a lower level Special Operations section. She's now moved her way up to a much higher level, except that her husband has been erased and only she and her Grandmother remember him.
Confused? I was too. I read the first chapter a few times over before I really understood how Fforde was writing and what his characters were capable of doing. But, once I start a Fforde book, I can't put it down. I sacrifice sleep if I have to; the books are that good.
You must start out with The Eyre Affair, where Thursday Next must solve a mystery surrounding Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre. The second, Lost in a Good Book, delves even deeper into the literary world with just a barrel full of silly. Once you've made your way through those two, continue to The Well of Lost Plots. Unfortunately, I don't have the fourth in the series, so I'm stuck without continuing the saga for awhile. But, I do have the first of an offshoot, so if I get really desperate, I can have a little Fforde to sate my appetite for good, not so easy, yet wit-challenging reading.
Now, if that's not a cookie-cutter review, I don't know what is.
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