Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-fi, Humor
Pages: 373
Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Opening Line:
“My father had a face that could stop a clock.”
Goodreads Synopsis:
There is another 1985, where London’s criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave’s Mr Big.
Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.
Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn’t easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
Perhaps today just isn’t going to be Thursday’s day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again…
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I read this book quite a while ago, but I still hold it in high regard as one of the most brilliant and clever pieces of fiction I have ever read. Fforde goes above and beyond when it comes to quality of writing, plot, dialogue, humor, and imagination. It’s one of those books that I’m so glad exists, because it’s such a pleasure to read. I originally wrote a review of it on my Goodreads account:
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazing! Astonishing! Incredible! Astounding! Stunning!
If you love reading, if you love literature, if you love words and want to indulge in fiction absolutely and completely, then read this.
This is definitely my sort of book and I can’t wait to read the rest of the Thursday Next series.
—
As you can tell, I was hooked from the start. This is 100% a book for book lovers. Packed with literature-related inside jokes, you’ll be chuckling your way through this book, and experiencing a certain kind of satisfaction that you can only get from a book like this. This is the first book in the Thursday Next series, and I am almost envious of anyone who has yet to embark on the literary adventure that awaits them between the pages of this book (and all the rest in the series).
Unlike the rest of the books, this one could conceivably be read as a stand alone book. Brontë’s Jane Eyre will never be the same again…but in a good way. If you haven’t read Jane Eyre then you’ll be missing out on a lot when you read this book. Which is why I recommend this book, and the series, to people who have read widely across literature. That’s the only way to ensure that you appreciate all the references that Fforde includes.
If you love puns and wordplay, then reading this will be a pleasure. I admire the editors of this book. There’s no excuses for a misplaced apostrophe or a misspelling…unless intended by the author. The execution of the story, the plot, the writing…is faultless as far as I’m concerned. If you’ve never read Jasper Fforde before, then you can’t go far wrong by starting with this one. I’m confident that it’ll be a series you won’t regret embarking on…
Link to the book on Goodreads:
[…] beginning of my journey with the Thursday Next series began when someone recommended The Eyre Affair to me after I had outlined the plot of my creative writing dissertation. The common denominator is […]
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[…] reading this that if you haven’t read any of the series before, go and read my review of The Eyre Affair first, because that’s where you’ll want to begin. Do not start with this book, because […]
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