A review by mpclemens
First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

3.0

Meta, meta, meta. Meta-humor abounds in this Next book, my first exposure to Thursday's adventures, though it's well into the series. This is a good thing, though, since it gave Fforde the chance to gloss over details that regulars to the series would know and understand. The tendency to over-explain slowed down [b:The Big Over Easy|6628|The Big Over Easy (Nursery Crime, #1)|Jasper Fforde|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309287709s/6628.jpg|2504943], but [b:First Among Sequels|27002|First Among Sequels (Thursday Next, #5)|Jasper Fforde|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1338467549s/27002.jpg|948585] moves at a pretty solid pace. My biggest criticism -- and the loss of a star -- is that the book doesn't go far enough in any one direction, choosing instead to jump into multiple directions at the same time. Thursday's life is complex, and perhaps there's a lot of loose story threads that she's accumulated over the course of the series, but there are a number of plot elements that lead nowhere in particular: not red herrings, since they don't redirect from the central mystery of the book... more like digressions that don't pay off in the end. As a result, the tone of the chapters tends to swing wildly from domestic bliss, to professional tedium, to wink-wink-nudge-nudge meta (book) humor, to actual thriller. The tension is vented frequently enough, though, that there's no real sense of danger or peril for Thursday. At no point do you truly feel that she's out-thought or out-plotted. An enjoyable read, but uneven.