Reviews

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Only show reviews with written explanations

rpkarlen's review against another edition

5.0

Great fun. Very interesting read. Set adjacent to the Thursday Next universe, the world of the Nursery Crimes Division is a lot of fun.

squeak's review against another edition

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1.0

A dull book that tries to be funny with silly nursery characters from stories and tales that live in the real life of dull small town in England.
The crime case plot isn't bad and some aspects are nice, even slightly charming, but I just found most of it to be situation humor of having fictional characters in a non-fictional setting... and that was all.

1.5/5

suvata's review against another edition

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3.0

Cute little “nursery rhyme” of sorts.

madisonhey's review against another edition

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3.0

interesting premise but the overall pacing felt really slow, until the final ~100 pages when it gets too chaotic to keep up for no reason

fsuarez's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

What a fun way to turn nursery characters and their stories on their heads!

ablotial's review against another edition

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4.0

I really enjoyed this! It was silly in the same way as the Tuesday Next series, with lots of wordplay and literary (in this case nursery rhymes and fairy tales) references. I was waiting for the Butcher to show up, since we had Baker and Kandylstyk-Maekyr (or however it was spelled). I kept wanting Jack and Mary to hook up, but of course Jack is already happy married so that would be a whole other thing. I loved the Pandora and Prometheus relationship, and honestly Jack's entire relationship with his family. I loved reading about Spongg Castle - I'd love to visit such a place. The mystery took so many twists and turns it was difficult to keep track of all the suspects. Talk about too many options. It was a little overwhelming in the end, but I guess it worked. I was glad it worked out with

Spoiler

Jack vs Friedland and glad he stuck to his morals with respect to the guild and figuring out the real story. And I'm also glad that he realized Friedland probably didn't start out as bad, it started out with an omission that worked out for him and then led to more

. I own the next book, I'll probably pick that up tonight.