Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
Book Review: Eight Days a Week
Summary: 5 Stars
Jasper Fforde clearly solidified his position in the literary world with "The Eyre Affair" the first novel in the Thursday Next series which was a wild and imaginative blend of pure literary love and comic genius. Each novel that followed was just as imaginative, if not even more far-fetched, but always as enjoyable as the first one. Sometimes authors can drag a series down when it continues on too far, but Fforde has done his series justice with each and every installment, especially "First Among Sequels".
The fifth book in the series, "First Among Sequels" takes place fourteen years after "Something Rotten", with our heroine settled into domestic life that includes an idle sixteen-year old son who won't assume his destiny with the Chronoguard, two daughters (one of which doesn't exist), and a job at Acme Carpets that is just a front for her old job as a literary detective still working with Jurisfiction (but of course, her husband doesn't know that). Tuesday finds herself drawn into another literary mystery while training two fictional and highly inadequate versions of herself to become Jurisfiction agents. When Britain's stupidity surplus reaches an all time high, a plan to make reality book shows promises to destroy all of classic literature as we know it, and Thursday is the only woman for the job.
Jasper Fforde is a sheer delight to read for anyone who truly loves literature. His novels are full of allusions and characters from great (and small) literary works, and represent a truly inspired take upon how stories come to life. "First Among Sequels" is a fast-paced romp through literature and back, with many twists and convoluted subplots that may or may not go anywhere thrown in between. Fforde knows how to leave his fans hungry for more, offering up tempting bait at the end of the novel that Thursday Next certainly isn't finished with the Book World, and neither is Jasper Fforde.
Book Review: The best of the Thursday Next series yet
Summary: 5 Stars
I am stunned to read the (relatively few) comments about how this novel has run out of ideas or is tedious in some way. Very much a case of people blaming on their shoes the faults of their feet, undoubtedly.
First Among Sequels is intelligent, witty, filled with new characters, new twists, and new inside jokes for bibliophiles who read Fforde for the right reasons. This series is for people who read and understand Jonathan Swift's humor, pathos, and intention. And if you know your Swift, you are going to adore this book.
Fforde has called Thursday Next an Alice in Wonderland for adults, and there is certainly much of that here. But there is more. For those who read deeply (especially the classics) this series offers a wealth of warm and familiar fun--like Monty Python set loose in a university literature class.
If you love the classics, and have a sense of humor, carry on reading Jasper Fforde. Thursday Next is your girl.
Book Review: Not quite as new & refreshing as the beginning of the series...
Summary: 4 Stars
Seems to have bogged down a bit in technical stuff, ignoring characters & situations. This type of explanation used to be embedded in the story, not handled separately as an instruction manual! But I still enjoy his world, and Thursday's adventures.Book Review: Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
Summary: 5 Stars
Love those Thursday Next books ! Very witty and fun to read. Can't wait for the next sequel.Book Review: A bit too much
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoy the Thursday Next books, and I love the inventions Fforde has come up with in this novel. The most innovative parts of the book, and by far the most interesting to me, involved the two fictional Thursday Nexts and the interaction between her and her children, the number of which seemed to fluctuate from page to page. Having both an action heroine Thursday 1-4 and an earth mother Thursday 5 was wonderful and novel. The revelations about Friday, Tuesday and Jenny were all fun and interesting.
Unfortunately, Fforde seemed to treat this novel like one of those reunion shows on television, where you absolutely have to have all the characters show up, have to have them all go through their most famous routines and get their canned applause, and this is done at the expense of innovation and plot. But Fforde was writing a novel, not a reunion show of the Thursday Next novels, and the cameos by Felix8, Aornis, the Minotaur, etc. didn't bring much to the book, and made it more complex and difficult to get through than it needed to be.
He did a nice job with the parodies of reality television shows and the governmental crisis involving the stupidity deficit because the Commonsense Party (oddly, not ironically meant) were running things. The relation between that and falling reading rates, and the means by which they were all solved, were interesting and imaginative.
On the other hand, I think Fforde has made Thursday too important in Bookworld. Towards the end, it appeared that no one in Bookworld could do much except for Thursday with her Outlander perspective, and I found that tiresome and that it gave much of the plot a deus ex machina quality. The way to infuse some of the characters with more life is to write them that way, instead of relying on Thursday to do everything.
I look forward to a better constructed next novel in this series.