Haven't read any books that I really disliked lately, due to the overwhelming demands of grad school on my read-time. But I did read a book that provoked me in a positive way, recommended by my friend, K.
This book is awesome. It's really, really smart. I almost can't describe how smart it is. Every character's name is a pun, including the heroine, a Ms. Thursday Next. (As my mom said, that name is just short of twee, but everyone else in the book has a punny name, some bordering on the rip-roaring hilarious.) It has everything: mystery, fun characters, female bad-assery, and literary allusions. Its setting is a kind of alternate-universe England in what I can only infer is the 1980's where literature exists kind of on its own plane, and there are branches of federal police that deal exclusively with literary law. Again, I'm oversimplifying and not doing justice to the plot. There are a lot of characters, and this book seems to be largely setup, but I'm hooked and want to dive into the story, because this is a really fun group of people and an amazingly creative idea. The works in which Literatec Detective Thursday Next becomes heavily involved are mostly Martin Chuzzlewit and Jane Eyre (hence the title). Having never actually read Jane Eyre - though I knew the story well thanks to my high school obsession with A&E literary adaptations (ah, remember when A&E was high culture and not just a forum for new eps of Dog the Bounty Hunter and Steven Segal: Lawman) - I was still able to really enjoy the book.
Ok I'll end the gushing.
