Life's hard.

It's even harder when you're stupid.

John Wayne

Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde ★★★★☆



The Woman Who Died A Lot (Thursday Next, #7)


A hero down, but not out.
Fiction – Urban Fantasy - Mystery
366 pages
US Publication Date: October 9th 2012 (first published July 12th 2012)
Thursday Next #7


After an assassination attempt, Thursday Next is in need of some recovery time at her body’s and Landen’s insistence.  She takes a supposedly more sedate job as Chief Librarian back in Swindon.  Though, with Goliath up to their old tricks, Swindon facing a smiting and Tuesday unable to make the Anti-Smote shield work, Friday still caught up in a future that will never be and the un-existence of Jenny life isn’t very restful.

Okay, so this book was way better than One of our Thurdays is Missing(#6)- which was more like a book set in the TNS world but not really about Thursday Next- but I wouldn’t say quite as good as First Among Sequels(#5).  Fforde’s writing is still deliciously absurd, but particularly poignant at highlighting human foibles, with eloquence and humor.  This book was – like the others- fun, exciting, quick paced, witty and clever (have I used enough adjectives yet?).  The ridiculously well-developed mythology continues to progress and evolve at an exciting rate (I heart you Jasper and your amazingly flexible imagination) deeply entrenching the reader in Thurday’s world. A word of caution, though, this book is definitely not a one off and I strongly recommend making your way through the other books before trying to tackle this one, otherwise you will be really lost.  Also, I always love the blurbs at the start of the chapters – a staple of the series. 

I was a little sad to see the wear and tear book life takes on our hero – as highlighted in this edition of her exploits – but Thursday is still Thursday if not a bit more cautious and less impulsive with age and experience.  On the down side the plot seemed even more unfocused than usual and it got to be a little bit of an over load.  In TNS there is always a lot going on- which as a fan I totally expected- but I think some stream lining, like losing the Aornis Hades plot line, would have helped.  In an effort to wind up some plot points I think Fforde was bit over ambitious.  In the end, though, everything was brought back into focus and in true TN fashion the ending was unexpected.

ISBN  067002502X (ISBN13: 9780670025022)

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