Bit of a meh. I found myself zoning out repeatedly. The whodunnit drive is much weaker than in the first installment and the plotlines end up feeling hopelessly tangled. It made it that much harder to care. Also, the time spent in books was less focused and spread across many different books, instead of the deep dive into Jane Eyre which felt so enjoyable in The Eyre Affair. In the first book, I did feel like there was a honeymoon period of discovering all the idiosyncrasies of the Thursday Next universe, but in this second tome, Fforde just keeps adding new quirks at every turn and instead of being charming, it just becomes tiresome. 2.5 stars.