Okay, so I'm "medicated" right now and hormonal as Hell. This should be fun.

Pros: well paced and in a unique town

Cons: I. Hate. Everyone. In. This. Book.

Every character was a cookie cutter walking stereotype. And the plot was so damn obvious I had it figured out about a quarter of the way thru. The only character I felt really bad for was the baby. My god. Insufferable petty white-people bullshit. And I'm white. I felt second-hand shame for these people. What was supposed to be political statements came off as just plain racist because of the blatant cliche of it all. 

But I had to finish this shit because I wanted to see how many things I had guessed right. The tally? All of them. Lord help me.

Not much  of a review because I'm not entirely sure what the plot was about in this one.

Thursday goes into the book world to stay out of danger during her pregnancy and ends up in a number of adventures with lots of book characters as part of the Jurisfiction squad.

I finished it and liked it better than book #2.

The ending where Fforde takes as swing at Amazon and DRM and self-publishing without quality control made me laugh a number of times.

And of course, Pickwick was excellent in this

We also get to read about the egg hatching.

Three old hags with hooked chins and mottled complexions danced and cackled in front of me, rubbing their dirty hands and dancing in the most clumsy and uncoordinated fashion. It was the worst piece of overacting I had ever seen.

‘Thrice the blinded dog shall bark,’ said the first witch, producing a cauldron from the air and placing it on the path in front of me.

‘Thrice and once the hedge-pig ironed,’ said the second, who conjured up a fire by throwing some leaves beneath the cauldron.

‘Passer-by cries, Tis time, tis time!’ screeched the third, tossing something into the cauldron that started to bubble ominously.

‘I really don’t have time for this,’ I said crossly. ‘Why don’t you go and bother someone else?’

‘Fillet of a pickled hake,’ continued the second witch,

‘In the cauldron broil and bake; Lie of Stig and bark of dog, Woolly hat and bowl of fog, Fadda loch and song by Bing, Wizard sleg and Spitfire’s wing. For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble!’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ I said, ‘but I really am very busy – and none of your prophecies have come true, apart from the citizen of Swindon bit and anyone with a telephone directory could find that out. And listen, you knew I was an apprentice so I had to be taking my jurisfiction finals sooner or later!’

They stopped cackling and looked at one another. The first witch drew a large pocket watch from the folds of her tatty cloak and looked at it carefully.

‘Give it ye time, imperfect waiter!’ she cried. ‘All hail MsNext, beware and heed the thrice-read rule!’

‘All hail MsNext, I before E except after C!’ cackled the second.

‘All hail MsNext!’ added the third, who clearly didn’t want to be left out. ‘Meet a king but not be one, Read a King but not —’

‘SHOO!’ shouted a loud voice behind me.

The three witches stopped and stared at the new visitor crossly. He was an old man whose weathered face looked as though it had been gnarled by years of adventuring across the globe. He wore a blue blazer over a polo-neck Arran sweater and on his head a captain’s cap sat above his lined features, a few wisps of grey hair showing from underneath the sweatband. His eyes sparkled with life and a grimace cracked his craggy features as he walked along the path towards us. It could only be Captain Nemo.

‘Away with you, crones!’ he cried. ‘Peddle your wares elsewhere!’

He probably would have beaten them with the stout branch he was brandishing had the witches not taken fright and vanished in a thunderclap of sound, cauldron and all.

‘Hah!’ said Nemo, throwing the branch towards where they had been. ‘Next time I will make mincemeat of you, foul dissemblers of nature, with your hail this and your hail that!’

He looked at me accusingly.

‘Did you give them any money?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Truthfully now! Did you give them anything at all?’

‘No.’

‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Never give them any money. It only encourages them. They’ll coax you in with their fancy prophecies; suggest you’ll have a new car and as soon as you start thinking you might need one – BANG! – they’re offering you loans and insurance and other unwanted financial services. Poor old Macbeth took it a bit too seriously – all they were trying to do was sell him a mortgage and insurance on a bigger castle. When the Birnham wood and “no woman born” stuff all came true the witches were as surprised as anyone. So never fall for their little scams – it’ll drain your wallet before you know it.

Hahahaha. 

‘Wuthering Heights was the only novel written by Emily Brontë, which some say is just as well, and others, a crying shame. Quite what she would have written had she lived longer is a matter of some conjecture; given Emily’s strong-willed and passionate character, probably more of the same. But one thing is certain; whatever feelings are aroused in the reader by Heights, whether sadness for the ill-matched lovers, irritability at Catherine’s petulant ways or even profound rage at how stupid Heathcliff’s victims can act as they meekly line up to be abused, one thing is for sure: the evocation of a wild and windswept place that so well reflects the destructive passion of the two central characters is captured here brilliantly – and some would say, it has not been surpassed.’

 

MILLON DE FLOSS –
"Wuthering Heights: Masterpiece or Turgid Rubbish?"

Hahaha. 

Yeah, there is a clear lack of plot in this but I have to admit that I have laughed out loud quite a few times at the way that various fictional characters interact in this book.

Ok, roughly 20% into the book (I'm listening while working on some admin tasks), there is no plot in this book so far.

So far, Fforde has basically just recapped what happened in the first two books.

If I were reading this one right after book # 2 (to continue with the series), I'd be pretty peeved with the lack of plot. The book just feels like a filler.

For my purposes, it kinda works as I don't have to expend a lot mental effort on it, but I am glad I managed to get the audiobook from my library's online service.