Something Rotten (Thursday Next, Bk 4) by Jasper Fforde

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I was delighted when someone recently gave me Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde’s fourth Thursday Next book, but at the same time I was a bit apprehensive due to my disappointment with the previous book in the series, which I thought was focused more on puns than plot. But I needn't have worried. Not only was Something Rotten a great book, it turned out to be my favorite in the series, so far.

In the beginning of Something Rotten, Thursday Next is still in the Book World, continuing her hunt for the escaped Minotaur. But after Emporer Zhark crashes into the 1875 western town with his battle cruiser, Thursday decides she’s had enough fiction for a while and it’s time to return to the real world. And so Thursday packs up her two year old son Friday, and returns to her mother’s house in Swindon.


Back in Swindon, with the brooding Hamlet in tow, Thursday is determined to get her old job back as a Literary Detective and to redouble her efforts at having her eradicated husband returned to her. But things have changed over the two and a half years that Thursday has been gone and her old nemesis, Yorrick Kaine, has risen in power and has joined forces with the Goliath Corporation, who are now focused on turning their corporation into a religion. On the plus side, Goliath is now seeking forgiveness from everyone who they ever caused injury to, which means that Thursday may have a chance at getting them to return her husband.

Aside from problems with Goliath, Kaine, cloned Shakespeares, a missing husband and the possibility of an upcoming apocalypse, Thursday is also being targeted by the deadly assassin, the Windowmaker, who happens to be the wife of Thursday’s good friend, Spike (though he thinks his wife is really a librarian). So in addition to all of her many other problems, Thursday needs to think of a way to avoid being assassinated without causing the death of her friend’s beloved wife.

I just loved this book! It was filled with so many colorful characters and so many different creative story lines, that it was just like embarking on a wonderful adventure that you never want to end. I don’t know how Fforde managed to keep all the different stories going on from getting tangled up, but he somehow does it quite successfully while populating them with wonderful characters that really come to life on the pages.

And the end of the book was absolutely perfect and unexpected; it was definitely my favorite ending of any of the books that I’ve recently read. After completing Something Rotten I’m actually hesitant in continuing to the next book because I can’t see how it could possibly be as good as this one was.

If you have been following Thursday's adventures so far, then Something Rotten is a must-read. And if you haven't yet given this series a try, then I highly recommend you do so, but start with the first book in the series, The Eyre Affair.

Read my review of The Eyre Affair
Read my review of Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next, Book 2)