It's been too long since I read a books didn't have footnotes in it. Ever since the semester ended, I've been trying something new-- instead of working on school-related stuff until I pretty much pass out from lack of sleep, this week, I've been spending my late evenings with Jasper Fforde's One of Our Thursdays is Missing.
It's a book that probably will not be terribly enjoyable for people who haven't read the other works in the series (which I urge everyone to do. Go on, I'll wait. *surfs the Internet. Makes a cake. Writes the next great American novel. Does dishes.* OK, all done? Good). It's also a bit slower than the other books in the series, and the jokes seem a bit more forced this time around, but Fforde is a wonderful author, so even on a less-than-stellar book, the result is chuckle-worthy, even if it's not the same ohmygodicannotgotosleepuntilifinishthisbook that The Eyre Affair was.
The premise is, not terribly surprising, that Thursday Next, or, rather, a Thursday Next has gone missing, and another Thursday has to go and both find her, and find out why she's missing (though not in that order). In the mean time, written Thursday meets up with a clockwork butler, an elephant with a long memory, a Designated Love Interest, and Unrequited Love Interest, and others. Hijinks (formulaically) ensue. Lessons are told, consequences are suffered, and everyone who was meant to lives happily ever after.
Not the best book in the world, and I doubt that I would have finished it if I hadn't had the great love of Fforde that I do. But it did provide a nice counterbalance to reading about sodomy in early modern Italy, which was today's related reading. I think I giggled more at the latter, but that's just because I am immature.
