The Well of Lost Plots is the third Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde. [Here are my reviews for the other books in the series.]

[SPOILERS for the first two novels follow.]

Plot:
After the still-ongoing eradication of her husband Landen, Thursday Next decides to give it a rest, also for the sake of her unborn child. Giving it a rest in Thursday’s life means that she retreats to Caversham Heights, an unpublished novel in the Well of Lost Plots where its protagonist Jack Spratt tries desperately to keep the book from getting deleted. But the troubles of Caversham Heights are Thursday’s least worries. Yorrick Kaine is still on the loose in the real world, her apprenticeship with Miss Havisham is coming to an end, Aornis Hades has left a mindworm in Thursday’s head that makes her slowly forget Landen and Text Grand Central is about to release a new operating system that will make BOOK (v8.3) obsolete.

There are many wonderful things to The Well of Lost Plots, but it’s definitely the weakest book in the series so far. The pacing is ever so slightly off and you just don’t get pulled into it as much as into the first books. Still, it’s very worth reading for a hundred thousand different reasons.

[SPOILERS]

There are many things that I love in The Well of Lost Plots. I love the trips into Thursday’s head, her memories of Landen and the Crimea and the war with Aornis. I love Granny Next. I love the idea of the Generics (though I did not particularly like who ibb and obb turned into). But most of all, I love how Fforde slowly builds up to “The Big Over Easy” with Caversham Heights. Especially considering that he had written The Big Over Easy first, and that it was actually one of those unpublished books in The Well of Lost Plots.

I also think that seening BOOK as an operating system is an awesome way to think about it – and it works surprisingly well.

The problem with The Well of Lost Plots is that the plot is even more frayed than usual and that the pacing is ever so slightly off. It took me about twice as long to read The Well of Lost Plots than the other books because I just didn’t get that into it. And since that was the case, it started to drag just a little bit.

That is not to say that the awesome didn’t outweigh the drag. I’m still excited about the series and continued reading Something Rotten without pause. It’s just saying that the drag is noticeable.

Summarising: Not the best Fforde has ever done, but not bad per se.