Thursday has decided to return to Swindon, although she enjoys her job in the book world. When her son Friday starts speaking Lorem Ipsum she knows she has to return to the real world to raise him. Beyond that, she also wants to find a way to uneradicate her husband, Landen, who has never met his son, and she finds herself in charge of protecting Hamlet. There’s also an all-important croquet match to be won, some time travelling of course, and a few discoveries along the way that make this installment a must-read for fans of the series so far.
I’ve always enjoyed this series, but I think I liked this book better than the rest. I found it a little hard to get into – it’s that adjustment period fitting myself back into Fforde’s world – but once I was in I was hooked, and a bit sorry it had taken me so long to actually get to this particular book. Once I remembered where I was, all those emotional connections came back, and I was really wrapped up in the story, particularly Thursday’s quest to get her husband back. Being apart from the one you love is pretty terrible, and even in a fictional world, the fact that no one remembered him was just heartbreaking.
The story for itself was quite a good one, too, and I just love the huge number of literary references scattered throughout. Hamlet was pretty obviously the big one for this book, although there is quite a memorable scene with the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. Fforde pulls in some historical references too with Thursday’s time traveling father, which obviously just pulled me in even further; there isn’t much I like better than fantasy AND history in one book! Especially when the book has an ending as wonderful as this one did – I’m almost not sure I want to go to the next one, but I’m also very curious about what happens next.
This is a bit of a short review as I’m never sure where to go with series books that I’ve already reviewed some of, so I’ll just leave you by saying I enjoyed Something Rotten very much. The whole Thursday Next series is wonderful for those who enjoy fantasy or science fiction and, of course, books.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
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