Litterary Giggles and The Eyer Affair

If you're and English major, or read a lot of classic literature, then you need to read this series. Seriously, guys. My sister has these books and they've sat on our living room shelf for years and years. I discovered them over Thanksgiving break, and now, I'm tempted to name my future puppy Thursday Next.

 

Puppy says: Hello, I am cute.

Puppy came from here.

 

My mom says I am allowed to buy a puppy next fall, when my sister goes to grad school. But only if I can pay the extra dog fee, and pay for the food, AND still pay for college.

 

But this is beside the point.

 

 

 Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. - Goodreads

 Let's get this straight upfront: you do not have to be a fan of Jane Eyre to be a fan of this book. I know this, because I am not a fan of Jane Eyre. I thought Rochester was old and creepy and I didn't like Jane, but mostly, I thought Rochester was old and creepy. (I read it in high school, so maybe I was just immature. Psh, who am I kidding? I'm still immature.) Despite the title, Jane Eyre isn't a huge part of the story, and I actually really loved how it was incorporated.

 

And Rochester?

 

Oh, Rochester . . . well, he's not creepy here. I actually kind of loved him. A lot.

 

Actually, I loved all the characters. Let's do a quick roll call:

 

Uncle Mycroft -  quirky and brilliant inventor. I would love to jump inside this book and snag a few of those inventions for myself.

 

Spike - deals with the capture of Supreme Evil Beings. He's the only agent assigned to his area because, well, it takes a special kind of person to go against the SEBs. I love the scene where he first meets Thursday - Muahaha. Funny, funny.

 

Acheron Hades - the bad guy. He's a lot of fun. He's very evil, too, and he requires his little minions to do wicked things every day, like drive over the speed limit - through a mall. There's also this things about Felix's face, which is just gross, so I won't go into that.

 

Jack Schitt - I laugh every time I see his name. "Schitt" sounds like . . . Okay, I know I'm immature. I'm sorry. Jack works for Goliath, this weapons corporation that has too much control and not enough limits. Jack Schitt is this annoying bad-guy who's technically not a bad guy, because Hades is the bad guy, but whatever. He so is.  

 

Pickwick - I have to mention Thursday's pet dodo, even if he's not in this book much. At first I was imagining the dodos from Ice Age, those really dumb birds who had three melons stockpiled for the ice age? Yeah. Pickwick has grown on me, though.

 

And there's many, many more. But you'll just have to read the book to meet them.