Oh I'm in two minds about this book.

I so wanted to like it. A alternate history world in which the borders between reality and books is flexible and malleable. Who would love to pop to Wuthering Heights for a cup of tea with Nelly Dean? Or stroll through the 100 Acre Wood? Or play hide-and-seek in the Garden of Eden (who's going to find you behind that apple tree?) for an afternoon?

You could pop into Fifty Shades and inform Ms. Steele what consent actually means.

And you have to dodge Baconians on the street seeking to convert your views on Shakespeare's authorship. A world where entertainment includes coin-fed Shakespearean soliloquy dispensers and wholly audience-participation Shakespeare plays with the atmosphere of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

And you can own dodos in Fforde's world. I mean, dodos! Because genetic splicing is a thing.

And time travel.

And vampires and werewolves.

I'm sure many people would find the range of alternative structures thrown into this mix quirky or witty - which each one is individually - I mean, book worms which crawl around and eat prepositions and excrete apostrophes or, if they're stressed, capitalisation - the range of ideas, concepts and conceits thrown in, to me, felt confused. Almost as if Fforde wrote himself into plot holes and had to go back to insert a random new feature in order to provide him with a way out. Or woke up with an idea and the words "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if..." on his lips.

What we're presented with is essentially a crime caper: the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit is stolen and Thursday Next is called in to investigate. We discover increasingly shady departments of the Special Ops forces of which Next is a member; the sinister Goliath corporation manipulating the investigation, a subplot involving Next's love life and her time in the Crimean War.

In addition to the confused gamut of tropes, there were more issues which irked me, as a writer myself.

[It is a new thing to self-identify as a writer for me... but it felt lovely saying it!]

The other issues. Oh yes. For a book so aware of the limitations of the first person narrative (it actual is a significant plot device towards the end, the fact that Jane Eyre is itself first person), the novel failed to either give Thursday a convincing narrative voice or to remain in its own first person narrative. We see numerous scenes from outside Thursday's point of view: whole chapters took place miles away from Thursday; some chapters alternated from Thursday's and an omniscient narrative point of view within the chapter.

And to have your first-person narrator randomly look at herself in a mirror just to describe her for the reader? Really?! I'd expect that from kids at school. What was even the point to tell me that she was

somewhat ordinary features.... Her hair was a plain mousey colour and of medium length ...

What do I learn of her from that? Really? Were her looks a plot point? No.

And sometimes Fforde did try. After a botched arrest attempt, we learn what happened from Thursday's interview with internal affairs. That's okay. That's a good idea: you can create the emotion of the protagonist directly; you can deliver half-truths and dramatic irony and unreliable narrators. Or, you can do what Fforde does, and simply retell the story in the same bland voice that Thursday's narrative voice has.

And our antagonist, Acheron Hades. With a name like that, how could Fforde have expected him to be anything other than a cardboard cutout villain. Imbued with a range of unexplained powers. Powers which are not shared by anyone else.

Let's have a look at Fforde's naming system. Thursday Next is odd; Acheron Hades is too obvious and blunt; Jack Schitt is childishly scatological; but minor characters like Millon de Floss or Felix Tabularasa have sparks of fun and wit.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on Fforde - or his editor, in all likelihood. A stronger editorial control could have made this a much better book. Maybe, though, just maybe, there's a really clever developed story arc which will tie everything together over the rest of the series. Maybe I'm too foolish to recognise meta-literary post-modern irony and see them as a lack of control over the narrative.

Maybe.

I will probably give one more in the series a go. Just in case.

If you liked this, try:

Mark Hodder, The Curious Case of Spring-Heeled Jack

Kim Newman, Anno Dracula

Cornelia Funke, Inkheart