Nope. This is criminally false advertising. This book sucks -_-The only explanation I can think of for all the five-star reviews is that y'all read an amazing first version of the story years ago. Sometime between then and now, Acheron Hades found The Eyre Affair's original manuscript and jumped inside, and changed the story to make it awful. So that by the time I got around to reading The Eyre Affair, I was left with this BS. I don't want to spend any more time thinking about this book so I'll ...

Really enjoyed the inventiveness of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair. The premise of the story is that original manuscripts can be stolen and then changed, not just that manuscript, but all copies of say, Jane Eyre. Thus, these original manuscripts are viewed as absolute treasures. There are also literary portals which intersect with the 'real world' which make it possible to change what happens in our favorite novel. And there's also time travel. And an alternate history which skews how we view ...

Hardly an author has styled the parallel universe tropes with breaking the wall elements to such perfection as Ffjorde did.Mix everything togetherThe integration of living literature in a parallel universe as a plot device is ingenious and a potentially endless source of innuendos, connotations, and options for more and similar novels. Imagine the same with video games, movies, or all mixed and it could get big quickly, depending on the main inspiration and idea of the chosen genres and works. O...

I read this years ago, I think it was back around 2005 or so. I remember liking the book fairly well, even though I'd never read Jane Eyre, and a modest part of the book's plot touches on that story. But I also remember being irritated at the book. Something made me bristle when I read it. Some elements of the storytelling rubbed me the wrong way. I remember talking to the person who recommended the book to me. I held it book up and said, rather disdainfully. "This is probably really popular, is...

This book may describe my perfect job goal: to be able to enter a book and meet the characters, ensuring they are following the author's original intentions and not "on-the-loose" due to some sort of villain. How amazing would that be? Awesome kick start to this series... I read the first 4 then started to get a little disenchanted, but I'll go back one day! All book lovers need to give this first one a chance -- you'll undoubtedly love and hate parts of it!

Have I become a jaded reader? I sometimes catch myself muttering in the middle of a long series of yawns, “Haven’t I read this plot/character/technique before?” Or when the author describes their setting, I will lazily flip through my mental inventory of backdrops until, sure enough, I find an old one that it is a good enough fit to reuse. Then Fforde comes along and throws the literary equivalent of a bucket of Arctic cold water in my face. I found myself having to actually work to keep up with...

Comment from April 2020I feel bad about this old review. I have now enjoyed a Fforde short story, The Locked Room Mystery, which I gave 4* and reviewed HERE.Review from August 2010I didn't enjoy this. It tries too hard to be clever and to cover many different genres (humour, sci fi, horror, detective, literary and more) whilst also being annoyingly silly. After 100 pages I ditched it - something I rarely do.Thursday Next is a woman who is a literary detective in one of several alternative realit...

I loved this book when I first picked it up and remember giggling the whole way through. (It was passed over to me by the Mum, of all people. We do not, normally, share the same taste in literature.) It has a charming irreverent take on... well... everything from literature to history. It's set in an alternate reality where literature is, if not kind, at least very very significant.

I've been storing up some venom for this review, so be prepared.First of all, I want to unleash my fury on whoever in the Rory Gilmore Book Club suggested this book as February's pick. To go from such a brilliant read as Jane Eyre to this was frustrating to say the least. It highlighted all the amateurish contrivances of Fforde's writing. I rolled my eyes so many times in the first four chapters, that I nearly gave myself a headache. And no, I'm sure it doesn't get better after that, that's jus...

I had the same feeling after reading this as I had after reading The Looking Glass Wars. Fabulous idea, terrible execution. I was going to give it one more star than I gave that because it's not quite as badly written. And I liked the idea of door-to-door Baconians and Rocky Horrorized Richard III. But I changed my mind because the more I think about it, the more I didn't like it.It was so smug and cutesy and in need of better editing. And it would have been better served by not being written in...