Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Shades of Gray on Shades of Grey

Even if this book wasn't brilliant, I was predisposed to think that it was. Jasper Fforde's books are off the wall, hilarious, and original. Shades of Grey easily lives up to the work that came before it.

The novel is set in a post-apocylyptic world, but is not filled with bleak and desolate landscapes or cannibals as many novels in the same setting contain. Instead, whatever ended the previous world is no longer of any (perceived) importance. In the world of Chromatica, social structure is determined by a person's color perception. The Greys are at the lowest end of this order and Purple is at the top.

The narrator of the story is Eddie Russet, a Red who finds himself on the fringes of the known world. He is a reluctant hero with whom the reader shares the discovery of secretes. As Eddie's views of his world are challenged, Fforde pokes fun at today's society. Then, just when the book seems like it is going to hold love up above the expectations of society, duty to a greater cause triumphs.

Many questions still remain to be answered, and I look forward to reading more in this series.


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