Friday, February 1, 2013

Review: Lost in a Good Book

Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next #2)
By Jasper Fforde
Penguin 2002
399 pages
From the library 

Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next, #2)

Do you ever read a book that just makes you happy? This is decidedly one of my happy books.

After her harrowing scrape with the villainous Acheron Hades and multi-million dollar corporation Goliath, Thursday Next is ready for life to get back to normal. She just wants to spent time with her new husband Landen and her beloved dodo. Then her bosses require her to do endless publicity, since she is now the poster girl for Literary Special Operations. And she discovers she is pregnant. And then Landen is eradicated, which means everyone else in the world thinks that he died as a child. 

Thursday must decide if she will aid the Goliath corporation in exchange for her husband's return. She becomes an apprentice in Jurisfiction, a group of literary detectives that investigate changes to plots and characters. Her mentor is none other than the infamous Miss Havisham of Great Expectations. 

I enjoyed The Eyre Affair, but I loved this story. Thursday is a woman on the brink and you wonder how she can manage to juggle one more thing here. She's pregnant, she's trying to save her husband, someone is trying to murder her, she is trying to help her father save the world, and she has to learn a completely new job over at Jurisfiction while keeping up with her real job at SpecOps. In spite of this all, she knows that she must keep moving forward...and so she does, although not without a few bumps in the road. 

These books are chock full of literary references. In addition to Miss Havisham, we meet the Red Queen and the Cheshire Cat and jump into a trial that could only find its home in the bizarre mind of one Franz Kafka. Fforde is an endlessly imaginative author who continues to come up with new ways to keep things interesting. This is not the kind of book you can breeze through without paying attention. However, it is a book that proves that readers (and stories) can be both smart and a whole lot of fun.

I don't read too many series. They tend to stress me out because who can think about an entire series when there are all of these books to read?!? In this rare case, I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of this series (there are five more books to date). This is the perfect blend of classic literature and fantasy and story and science in a book that will leave you chuckling while reading but thinking about its characters and possibilities long after you are finished. 

8 comments:

  1. I don't do many series either but I do love the idea of a happy book! We all need a few of those :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree! And I liked that this book was fun, but it still made me think a little.

      Delete
  2. I was the same way about Eyre Affair vs. this book. I liked EA well enough but not enough to look for more Fforde books. Then I saw this one and decided to give it a try, not realizing it was part of the Thursday Next series and LOVED it. I hope you enjoy the rest of the series. The 3rd is my favorite.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oooh good to know! I will have to pick up the third one soon.

      Delete
  3. I love Fforde's books. You're right, they just make you happy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It feels like Fforde writes a big, joyous love letter to everyone who loves books, doesn't it??

      Delete
  4. I love Fforde's books. I need to get back to them! I don't know why I quit reading them!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe it has something to do with only 24 hours in a day and all of these books for us to read! :)

      Delete