Lost in a Good Book

Book No: 33
Title: Lost in a Good Book
Author: Jasper Fforde
Genre: Fantasy
Completed: 6/30/09
No. of Pages: N/A
Rating: 3/5*****

I really enjoyed Fforde’s first Thursday Next book, The Eyre Affair, I found it funny and entertaining and loved all the literary references. Lost in a Good Book is also funny and entertaining in spots, it just seemed to have everything thrown into this book, including the kitchen sink. The essential plot seems to involve Thursday trying to get her husband Landon back after he is eradicated by Spec-Ops, but there is so very little of that plot and so many other things going on that the plot line seems to disappear and reappear as needed.

The best parts of the story are when Thursday is jumping into books. Her apprenticeship to Miss Haversham from Great Expectations is extremely funny and entertaining as are her meetings with the Chesire cat and other literary characters - even the lowly appliance manual character. It’s at these times the book shines and I enjoy it the most. But it is very hard to keep all the time jumping, dodo birds, Neanderthals, pink goo, Chronoguards and Goliath villains straight. The name puns wear a little thin after a while too. Jack Schitt isn’t all that funny the 50th time you read it. Most unsatisfying of all is the lack of a resolution to the Landon story line, the book ends with a bit of a cliff hanger.

I already own The Well of Lost Plots, and I will read it eventually, just not too soon.