litlover12 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
litlover12) wrote2010-01-04 03:52 pm
litlover12) wrote2010-01-04 03:52 pm
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I did it . . . sort of
I finished Shades of Grey about forty minutes after midnight. So I almost read my ten books in sixteen days.
As far as constructing a fantastically detailed, wholly believable alternate universe goes, Jasper Fforde has done it again. Only Fforde (or possibly Douglas Adams, I guess) could have come up with a world where spoons are a rare and valuable collector's item, roads eat the roadkill, and your station in life depends on which color and how much of it you can see. All that part is great, if occasionally gruesome.
But the work has a more melancholy feel to it than Fforde's other works, and with a few major exceptions, the main characters aren't as admirable or likable as his main characters usually are. Lord knows there's a place in literature for depictions of corruption and heartbreaking moral dilemmas, but the way they were handled here made it a little more difficult to root for our heroes sometimes than it was for Thursday Next. And I can't help feeling that Thursday could take Eddie Russett, the well-intentioned but weak protagonist here, with both hands tied behind her back. Still, it's a good effort on the whole. Three-and-a-half out of five stars.
That's it for Operation Book Binge. If ever I try a stunt like this again, someone please tell me to go get my head examined! Not that it hasn't been fun, but I lost a lot of sleep and I think I may have sprained a cornea. (Kidding. A little.)
As far as constructing a fantastically detailed, wholly believable alternate universe goes, Jasper Fforde has done it again. Only Fforde (or possibly Douglas Adams, I guess) could have come up with a world where spoons are a rare and valuable collector's item, roads eat the roadkill, and your station in life depends on which color and how much of it you can see. All that part is great, if occasionally gruesome.
But the work has a more melancholy feel to it than Fforde's other works, and with a few major exceptions, the main characters aren't as admirable or likable as his main characters usually are. Lord knows there's a place in literature for depictions of corruption and heartbreaking moral dilemmas, but the way they were handled here made it a little more difficult to root for our heroes sometimes than it was for Thursday Next. And I can't help feeling that Thursday could take Eddie Russett, the well-intentioned but weak protagonist here, with both hands tied behind her back. Still, it's a good effort on the whole. Three-and-a-half out of five stars.
That's it for Operation Book Binge. If ever I try a stunt like this again, someone please tell me to go get my head examined! Not that it hasn't been fun, but I lost a lot of sleep and I think I may have sprained a cornea. (Kidding. A little.)