The Woman Who Died a Lot: A Thursday Next Novel, Book 7

I wish I could rate this at 4.5 stars. It falls a bit short of 5 stars, but deserves better than a 4 star rating.

A must read for anyone following the series. But if you're following the series, you know you'll read this book eventually.

While the book before this (One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing) occurs almost completely in the book world, this one occurs almost completely in the real Thursday's world. The story was interesting throughout, and narration was perfect. I don't usually listen to an audiobook again immediately after finishing it, but this one was interesting enough that I did so, and managed to pick up some nuances I missed the first time around.

I would not recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read the Thursday Next series before, however. I started with one of the books in the middle and it took a while figuring out what was going on. Start with the first book for maximum enjoyment.

I've read all of the Thursday Next series, and I thought the last 2 or 3 books not as good as the first few, but with this edition I thought Jasper Fforde got his stride back. This story definitely had that extra spark that the last few books were lacking. The writing was spot-on and hilarious. This series is one where I frequently find myself laughing out loud, which is really embarrassing sometimes when I'm sitting in my cubicle at work and people start looking at me weird.

I liked the new story with the Library Service and Fforde's explanation of that branch of the military(?). This whole alternate reality that Fforde has created with Thursday Next is continually expanding and this was particularily humorous in this book.

Emily Gray does a very good job shifting through all the characters. She definitely is a great narrator with perfect comedic timing.

Well, these stories bring more laughs than tears most of the time, but the bit about Jenny at the end was kind of saddening, but hopeful. I don't want to give to much away there.

Definitely worth a listen for any Thursday Next fan! You'll be really happy you did. I'm already gearing up for the next edition.

The Thursday Next series continues, as mind-boggling, entertaining and thought-provoking as always. Emily Gray's reading again makes the most outlandish situations seems perfectly reasonable. The humor is both timely and timeless. I loved reading the book and love the audio edition too; I have already listened to it a second time. As usual with Fforde's fiction the prose is so full of jokes, puns and references that it is almost impossible to catch everything the first time, especially when the reader/listener gets caught up in the plot. Essential for fans of the series.

As always, Thursday Next is a tough and tender character and the crowd of zanies around her bring humor and craziness to the world. It's best to listen to the series in order as there are many references to earlier books.

I think this is fifth in the Thursday Next series. A worthy addition, tho the plot pattern is beginning to get familiar. other reviews have summarized well, I have 2 points to make:
1. Start at the beginning with the Eyre Affair, or as early in the series as you can. The first book introduces a bizarre and amusing world and the following couple books add some wild dimensions.
2. Emily Gray sounds like she's middle aged or beyond and perhaps appropriate for Thursday's time of life in this book. Her words are clipped and quick but excellently enunciated and I have no real complaint. But Elizabeth Sastre did the earliest narrations and her voice is a real treasure. Her voice is richer, like Glenda (witch of the north in Wizard of Oz) but sexier. Definitely more pleasant to hear and more appropriate for a young Thursday. I got the earlier books on cassette or CD from the library and the first 3 for sure are narrated by her. I notice some of the same books are by Emily Gray on Audible: get the Elizabeth Sastre versions if you can.

I get a great kick out of Jasper Fforde's quirky humor. When I want a pick-me-up I listen to the mp3 recording I made of the "had-had" discussion in "The Well of Lost Plots". Pure genius. And Jasper does not disappoint in the latest Thursday Next.

Thursday doesn't get back to the Book World in this one, although the Book World plays prominently in the search for "Dark Reading Matter" (a literary analogy to the Dark Matter and Dark Energy that physicists theorize constitutes a lot of our universe). There's a good bit about time-travel, but not too much of paradoxes to make your head hurt. Lots of standard Thursday Next fare too, the Chronoguard, SpecOps, smitings and marmolite and whatnot.

I had to pay close attention to the Park-Lane family's discussions of the daughter Jenny - a few times I backed up to re-listen to one section or another. Aornis Hades is back, not killed (as I thought) in "Lost in a Good Book".

Emily Gray does her usual great rendition of the characters in Thursday Next's world. I've always thought that a lot of her male voices sounded pretty much the same, but that's just a minor quibble.

If you're new to this series, I would recommend listening to them in order. There's a fair amount of continuity between the books, and while Jasper Fforde does a pretty good job filling in the back-story, it will help a lot if you've already heard it.

Lots of fun. You won't be disappointed.

Not quite as good as some of Fforde's other books, this was still an entertaining story. A bit slow to get going, this is not the book for someone just being introduced to Jasper Fforde's multiverse. For those of us who are old hands though, the dazzling array of puns and allusions are great fun.

Since the disbanding of most of SpecOpps, Thursday is living in middle-aged retirement outside of Swindon with her husband Landon and their two children, Wednesday and Tuesday. Tuesday is a sixteen year old genius who is working on a shield to protect Swindon from the wrath of an angry god when not attending school and doing her best to do things a normal teenager would be expected to do. Wednesday is working at a do it yourself store and brooding over the loss of his future purpose.

Meanwhile Thursday ends up with a new job as a library director, has a problem with a mindworm that makes her think that she has a third child, and finds herself replaced by synthetic Thursdays made by Goliath. The reappearance of her old nemesis, Jack, now number 91 on the corporate ladder, adds to her problems, as does her rival, the ambitious Commander Phoebe Smalls

Recommended for Thursday Next fans.

I really like the narrator, it's so important that the narrator does a good job.

Well, Thursday Next of course. She's a great detective.

She does all the voices very well. They're all quite different.

You didn't have to have been familiar with the previous Jasper Fforde novels to understand most of the ideas behind this one.

I have heard them ALL...from Thursday Next, through to all the others. I recommend them all, but I think you need to have listened to some of the earlier ones to know the underpinnings of the later ones (even when they are on different "tracks"").

Sure -- on a rainy day while knitting or doing a puzzle.

Jenny -- who doesn't exist. But Fforde has done a great job here with Landon, formerly a stick character.

Emily Gray IS Thursday Next. She makes Fforde's absurd and increasingly complex world plausible.