One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde Buy This Book Now

Suzanne
Rating:


Review
Thursday Next is missing (not that anyone’s admitting it) and it’s up to the written Thursday Next to find her.  Not that she has any idea where to start looking.  The plot was disappointingly slow to develop in the first half of this book, which mainly seemed filled with too many elaborate descriptions of the Bookworld.  The written Thursday bumbles around as a lesser reflection of the real Thursday, trying to determine if the real Thursday is really missing and saving a mechanical butler from being stoned in the process.  The butler, Sprockett, is an amiable and rational chap who’s a little reminiscent of Spock in Star Trek and was my favorite character. He’s ingenious and dedicated and makes a killer cocktail to boot.  The story got better in the second half and included a steamboat trip up the Metaphoric River, complete with “eccentric foreigners” and an adventurer. Altogether, though, I missed the real Thursday.  This was not as good as some other books in this series.

Best Line:
“As a bonus there is traditionally at least one murder on board each trip – a “consideration” to the head steward will ensure that it is not you.” (pg. 300)

---

Kim
Rating:


Review
Thursday Next is one of my favorite characters in BookWorld, and the written Thursday Next is definitely not her. The real Thursday is missing, and has been for a month, when the written Thursday is dispatched to find her, but on the sly since there are plenty of people that would like to eliminate Thursday Next altogether. The written Thursday is on the timid side, and not nearly as daring and witty as I would expect her to be, but she does have some adventures while trying to unravel the mystery of the real Thursday’s disappearance, like when her cab driver inadvertently drives into a mimefield, where 500 or so mimes are waiting for anyone to laugh and applaud their antics, and Thursday’s first trip into the RealWorld was funny though too short. The story drags for the most part, and even the ending was somewhat yawn-inducing for this reader. I did enjoy the addition of a butler named Sprockett for Thursday, complete with expressive eyebrows and a keen knowledge of cocktail mixology. Mr. Fforde’s The Eyre Affair remains my favorite of his works though.

 

Best Line:  “Just when you think you’ve got the hang of it, along comes string theory, collateralized debt obligations or Bjork’s new album, and bam! You’re as confused as you were when you first started.”