Sunday 4 January 2015

Book Review: The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next #3)

The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next #3)The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I hadn't read any Jasper Fforde books in a while, and after reading lots of books based in real life, I wanted something to take me away from it all. The Well of Lost Plots is as far from real life as you can get. In fact, it brings books into the everyday with such clarity and detail, it makes me want to read and write differently.
These books follow Thursday Next, Jurisfiction Apprentice, working with Miss Havisham to solve problems in books, this includes Anger Management classes for the characters in Wuthering Heights and ensuring books are safe from grammasites.
Jasper Fforde's mind is pure genius. I don't know how on earth he keeps track of all of the little nuances. I've never read a book with a world so fully realised. I only wish that I'd read some of the classics that he refers to, so that I could understand more of the 'in-jokes'. My only complaint, is that having stage-managed Much Ado About Nothing not long ago, I can safely correct him in that the character is named Benedick, not Benedict. But the sparring between him and Beatrice was brilliant.
Thursday Next is a lovely character, a female with gumption but still likeable, with real life situations as well as some not-so-real-life. For example, she's pregnant by a husband who has been eradicated and a Goddess has wormed her way into her memories. Because of her predicament, Thursday is on holiday in a book called Cavendish Heights, a crime story set in Reading, which is held in the The Well of Lost Plots, which is where all books live until their published or sold for salvage. Not only does she have her own issues to deal with, but the book characters want her to help them save the book which is due for demolishing.
It's hard for me to describe how brilliantly clever this is, as it's so complicated and so detailed, all I can say is, read this series, start at the beginning, and for those who are a fan of Jasper Fforde's other series, Nursery Crime, they will enjoy this even more.

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