Eeek, is this Lit & Fict or Mystery? Maybe a little of both? Hearing the summary of this book made me really excited to read it, and the other four that follow. This one kind of bugged me though. I can't put my finger on it. Thursday seemed kind of bratty or something. Maybe depressed? But, I did get a kick out of the premise and I loved the little flourishes like the Will Speak machines and Richard III a la Rocky Horror. I also kept thinking, "Wow, that is not how I remember Jane Eyre. Did I make up my own ending?"

Luckily I signed up for a bookring for Lost In A Good Book and ended up reading them consecutively. I loved the second one in the series! I might not have gone further just on the merits of the first but now that I read the second I will definitely read the rest. Of course, now I am getting the two confused so I don't want to give anything away. Suffice it to say that the whole idea of entering into book is just about the coolest thing I can imagine. :)

Because geishabird asked nicely (and I was sending her a book anyway) I decided to make a ring out of this. After you make a journal entry saying you received the book, PM the person after you on the list to get their address. I will post where the book is in this journal entry and on my bookshelf. Plese try to move it along within a month of receiving it. But most importantly, enjoy!!!

Please follow this shipping order...
geishabird (Toronto, ON, Canada)
Luintaurien (NE, USA)
glade1 (NC,USA)
sabeena29 (MA, USA)* - skipped
Magika (Norway)* - skipped
-Psyche- (MN, USA)
back to me fizzfred (CA, USA)

I sent this to geishabird yesterday to start the ring. I included a bookmark for everyone. Please take one and pass the rest on with the book.

Received today...thank you! You were very kind, fizzfred, to start this ring. After joining two other rings for this book, and having both of them stall, I had pretty much decided that I just was going to have to buy my own copy if I wanted to read it...but fizzfred to the rescue! So kind...

Your bookmarks are great! That's so nice of you. And I *love* your book label. I plan to start this tomorrow when I finish my current book.

Oh dear, oh dear...where to begin?

Jasper Fforde is a clever, imaginative fellow who clearly loves his English Lit classics. Unfortunately, he is a terrible, terrible writer. Terrible. What could have been a very funny, very intelligent literary mystery in someone else's hands becomes a wad of soggy, sloppy, embarrassingly flat and painfully awkward prose that I could barely finish reading. What a collosal shame.

I feel quite embarrassed about disliking this book so much, since fizzfred went out of her way to organize this bookring primarily because I mentioned that I had been in two that had previously stalled. But I have to make this journal entry truthful. Fforde's writing reminds me of stuff my classmates used to workshop in our first-year university creative writing classes. Who was his editor, and what blunt object was he/she hit over the head with? I started off annoyed, then became frustrated, and then finally angry with page after page of clumsy, pedestrian narrative. Here are a few examples:

pg. 290: "He smiled solemnly." I defy anyone to demonstrate to me what a "solemn smile" looks like.

pg. 309: "...found ourselves in the old kitchen: a damp and dilapidated room packed with large food preparation equipment." Thanks for clarifying that; I expected a kitchen to be filled with garden gnomes.

(Not to mention that an incident on page 342 seems to imply that Thursday hasn't changed her clothes since page 178, which seems unlikely.)

I could go on, but why bother? I guess what makes me so mad is that there are some really, really clever ideas in this book. Fforde's "solution" to the question of who wrote Shakespeare's plays is quite brilliant, and I love the idea of literary characters interacting with the "real" world. And some of Uncle Mycroft's inventions are positively a scream, as are some of the smaller plot twists throughout the book: the Prose Portal, the ChronoGuard (Thursday's father is about the only truly interesting character in the book), and the whole idea of an alternate history of the 20th century is quite ingenious. Unfortunately, Jasper Fforde is a bad writer - at least, in this book, for I've read nothing else of his - and the ideas just don't pay off.

Okay. That's enough. Book will be mailed to the next participant this week. Fizzfred, thank you again for your generosity and your lovely bookmark. Happy BookCrossing, everyone.

Status Update: batty14 has found the book elsewhere & asked to be skipped; waiting to hear back from Luintaurien...

Booked mailed to Luintaurien today...

Got it today. Thank you. Will read and pass on ASAP.

Can't get into itso sending it on

RELEASE NOTES:

Received in the mail today. I have several bookrings ahead of it but hope to hurry through them, as I have been looking forward to reading this book!

Thanks for the bookmark, too, fizzfred!

I really enjoyed this little romp! I can see why this book is getting so much buzz and look forward to a chance to read the next one in the series. I enjoyed Fforde's rather schmaltzy style of writing and appreciated the humor, especially with the character names (Jack Schitt, Braxton Hicks, Paige Turner, etc.) and the little bookworms passing gas in the form of extraneous punctuation that appeared in the narrative.

Having said that, I can see why others might not appreciate the book. I certainly wouldn't classify it as "great literature" and I always have trouble with stories that include time travel, because it seems the characters could make a lot more changes than they do. But I love the idea of going into a book and meeting the characters, and I think Fforde does a pretty good job of keeping his version of the world pretty consistent.

I just thought it was a lot of fun and I certainly never knew what might happen next. Thank you, fizzfred, for sharing this one.

Sabeena29 and Magika have both asked to be skipped, so I'm off to PM -Psyche- for an address.

Update: Mailed to -Psyche- via media rate on 3-27-06.

Arrived today. I look forward to re-reading it. Read it a while back and remember thinking it was a fun little book.

RELEASE NOTES:

Thanks for having this ring. I really enjoyed re-reading this. A fun book for anyone who loves literature--clever and enjoyable.

Thanks for the successful ring! The book has arrived home safely. I will to wild release it soon. Here is hoping I get a catch!!!