Rating: 
Summary: Not too bad for a first effort
Review: Jasper Fforde (is this a real name?--I doubt it!) has put togther a reasonably amusing and workmanlike (workwomanlike?) first novel which we are promised (or warned?) is the first of a series. Fforde explores his/her borrowed premises of 'fact/fiction' and 'time travel' with facility and wit, though many American readers may be baffled by the relentlessly British references and names (how many Yanks know what a Bowden Cable is, for example). Some material is stretched beyond its elastic limit in terms of interest or credibility--consider airships, featured in the book, that could have been explored with far more insight and amusement but are merely tossed in without perspective or apparent information.
Flashes of brilliance and wonderful whimsy are interspersed by plodding and inconsistent use of the language and insufficient descriptive detail which would have enriched the text in a book that has been inflated to its 380-page length with wide margins and 32 lines per page. This is a pity, and might have been avoided by editing--realize, in context, that today's publishers eschew editing and expect the writer not only to be his or her own scrupulous editor and fact-checker but also the typesetter. In the case of Fforde this also gives rise, in the American edition, to confusion about words spelled differently in the UK and US, with 'theatre/theater' as a typical annoying example--make up your bloody mind, woncha? Some of the work obviously needed to be read aloud by the author (see my review of Steve Martin's SHOP GIRL for relevance) to reduce the clunker quotient.
Readers expecting divine inspiration or deep insight will be disappointed. Anyone who expects significant exploration of emotion will come away empty handed. Those who are easily amused or who think that a British author is all knowing about literature and has a corner on satirical wit will keep turning the pages, to dig up yet another analogy or manipulated historical name. Dig, dig, dig, but it never quite gells. The infuriating part about this process is that the promise is there in adbunsance but is never truly delivered. Does this, one cannot help wondering, reflect the experience and intellectual bandwidth of the Viking approval staff (Viking published the book in the US) or do both Penguin and Viking despise their readerships and settle for a lowest-common-denominator contempt for the people they expect to buy their books?
In all, this is a book closely akin to a bag of potato chips. One can't eat just one chip or read just one page, as we all know, but the over-all effect is just slightly 'lite' and hollow. In that sense it clearly matches much current popular entertainment (music, film or 'literature') but will probably sell well to readers who do not ask too much of their authors.
Rating: 
Summary: A Not So Guilty Pleasure
Review: This book is pure enjoyment! As a student of English literature, I often find myself feeling guilty about reading pulp novels or mysteries, but not this book! The Eyre Affair is "intelligent fun" and full of wit and wordplay. It's an easy read; personally, I couldn't put it down. The names of the characters are the only drawbacks; Thursday, Schitt, Hades, etc. If you can get past that, you're in for a quick-paced adventure.
Rating:
Summary: A new spin on english literature
Review: If you like the classics you will love seeing Fforde's characters interacting in them! I certainly have not read every literary classic referenced in this book but that did not reduce my enjoyment in any way. This book is fanciful and very clever. It blends a bit of every genre successfully. Two thumbs up, Mr. Fforde! I can't wait to read the sequel!
Rating:
Summary: No Plain Jane
Review: If the world had never known the Bronte sisters, with their love of language, love of complex heroines and free-growing, uncontrollable landscapes--really, their love of love--would we ever have met their literary descendants, novelists from Victoria Holt to Rosemary Rogers, Anne Rice to Michel Faber? If all humanity has a mitochondrial Eve, then certainly authors have a manuscript Mama, a literary Lucy, if you will.The time-traveling, rollicking-romance, "wittier than most" novel THE EYRE AFFAIR works on the premise that simple changes or adjustments in a book's plot can rock the interior world as well as the external one. Author Jasper Fforde has a lot of characters, plot points, storylines, puns, and historical accuracies and inaccuracies to juggle. Does he succeed in his Cirque du Soleil style of writing? Let's just say he puts on a marvel of a show, but when all is said and done, the audience has been entertained but has also been distracted by all the flash and sequins, bells and whistles. Characters emerging from fiction to intermingle with "real" people is nothing new. Woody Allen has tackled the conceit twice: once in his brilliantly funny short story "The Kugelmass Episode" and, of course, in his poignant, comical, and ultimately melancholy movie "The Purple Rose of Cairo." For all his personal flaws, Allen is a tough act to follow, and Fforde doesn't quite fill the New Yorker's shoes. THE EYRE AFFAIR is a book that is in love with books. Its characters are all manuscript-mad; in fact, the whole parallel universe is besotted by Byron, Milton, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. They trade quips about Quilp and Dickens as readily as we exchange comments about the Yankees and the Mets. (Feel free to fill in your own baseball giants and underdogs.) As a former journalism and American Literature major, I so wanted to be swept up in the travails of Thursday Next (the novel's courageous and honest heroine) and her private-eye-type escapades. I found it tough going, though, because of the number of sci-fi devices thrown into the mix: time travel, portals into other dimensions, airships, plasma guns, and mad-scientist experiments gone awry. At its very best, this book is a delight. It rewards any person who maintained a B+ average throughout high school and college. You can feel empowered for knowing the character references and the historical analogies. At its worst, it seems like the author never expected to be published, so he wrote a novel for his own pleasure--throwing in any and all devices that tickled his fancy. He liked A WRINKLE IN TIME--here, there's a pinch of time slippage. Banter between smart, adult protagonists--let me sample THE THIN MAN and even MOONLIGHTING. Plus, Jack London's THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU (made into a super movie with Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed)definitely colored the writer's alternate universe, where derring-do is done on airships and among gaslit corridors. It's not a big book--my edition was under 400 pages, yet it took me a while to go through it. There're just too many folks and flummoxes to wade through. Bottom line: THE EYRE AFFAIR is witty, ambitious, spunky, and convinced of its own originality. The more well-read you are, however, the less witty and original it seems. Though it certainly is spunky!
Rating:
Summary: Reading "Jane Eyre" first is not necessary
Review: You don't have to have read "Jane Eyre" to understand this book, there are enough internal clues to make it clear. I've read a couple of Douglas Adam's books and find the type of humor similar. Several places I laughed out loud. The wordplay is delicious. If you say the characters' names aloud often you'll find each name is a word. If you've ever been in a Shakespeare course or attended a Shakespean play, you'll enjoy the book. I look forward to reading the series as it appears.
Rating: 
Summary: Brief Review
Review: An entertaining read. You have to remain alert for the numerous alternate-reality references (to a "former RAF, then Luftwaffe" airbase, etc.) but the story zips along and although the characters aren't really developed, the situations are never less than entertaining. Looking forward to reading the next one, and since there are lots of texts to be twitted, no doubt this will be a long and enjoyable series.
Rating:
Summary: A rich dessert with a few too many ingredients
Review: I finally finished The Eyre Affair. Took me a while because I could only take a couple chapters per dose. That's because the book tries too darn hard to be clever. And winds up overdoing it. Mad scientists AND time travel AND puns AND alternate history AND sly references to other SF for the cognoscenti AND British bureaucratic farce AND love story AND oh so clever character names... There was a dessert I got at a restaurant once that reminded me of this. It was a chocolate fudge cake with caramel, coconut, pecans, whipped cream, and dark chocolate frosting. Delicious, right? Except, they served it on a plate with both raspberry and white chocolate sauces drizzled over it, and a sprig of mint leaf on it. I told the waiter to tell the chef that they should have left off the trim - it was distracting. At that point, one more flavor would only get lost, if it were weak, or muddy the waters, if strong. And that's what this book felt like- somebody drizzled a few too many sauces on the cake. It was so clever I found myself saying "stop already with the 27th Division of Special Ops, and get on with the plot!" The universe it's set in is an alternate history where the Crimean War is still going on 130 years later, into the 1980's. Airplanes haven't been developed; air travel is by dirigible. Our heroine, Thursday Next, is an operative in the literary fraud division of Special Ops. Her dad is a rogue time-travelling former Special Ops man. One of the villains is named Acheron Hades, to give you an idea of where the names are going. Her mom still lives back in their home town, with the spare rooms occupied by a mad scientist/inventor and his wife. That's enough for you to decide whether you want to get started on this mish-mash. It *is* very funny, and there *are* some interesting premises along the way, and it *is* full of fun references to other books. There's just a little too much raspberry sauce on it, though.
Rating:
Summary: Offbeat and entertaining
Review: From the way that the Eyre Affair has been promoted, one would think that Jasper Fforde was the successor of Douglas Adams. While Fforde is a good writer - even better than Adams in his later books - the Eyre Affair is not like the Hitchhiker's series and any who look for that may be disappointed. Which is a shame, because this is still a very good book; while it does have humorous moments and there is a heap of witty wordplay, this is not truly a comic novel; there is too much grimness in places. A fairer comparison to make would be to say that this is a surreal version of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone books. Tuesday Next is a police officer of sorts who investigates literary crimes. She lives in an alternate Britain where the Crimean war continues, people prefer blimps to planes, and literature and art are taken very seriously: Baconians go door to door trying to convince people that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays, and Surrealists war in the street with fans of Impressionism. There may be no movies such as the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but people will indulge in Richard III instead of that cult film. Next is called in to help detain the vicious Acheron Hades, a thorough villain who delights in evil and has almost supernatural powers. Through a device that allows people to enter and leave stories, he plans on wreaking havoc with the greatest English novels, elaborating on a similar idea in a Woody Allen short story (The Kugelmass Episode) in Allen's book Side Effects. There is a lot more in the Eyre Affair, however, including vampires, werewolves, time holes and much more. This is a fun although sometimes confusing read. As I said previously, this is more serious than sometimes promoted, but you should laugh, nonetheless. In any case, it's a lighter read than Jane Eyre, which in a way, you get to read at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Mystery/Fantasy Buff
Review: I was transported into this literary world of time travel from the first page. It is one of the most imaginative storylines I've read in a long time. I'm as excited to read the 2nd book as I am anxiously awaiting the next Harry Potter book. 5 stars isn't even a high enough rating. Plan to buy another copy just for yourself so you can lend the first copy to other friends.
Rating: 
Summary: I am being generous...
Review: The premise is good, albeit unoriginal. A writer with a gift could turn this into a fun adventure, like the Harry Potter series. Unfortunately, The Eyre Affair is written in an amateurish, cliche-ridden manner that dulls tbe effects of potentially creative plot. The villain, Acheron Hades, is so hopelessly Hollywood-like, he brings Batman's foes to memory. There's no complexity or interest to the main character, besides her amazing ability to be in the right place at the right time. Again, Harry Potter is deeper, funnier and all around more human and interesting than Thursday Next.
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