LoveReading Says
I’m just going to scale a few rooftops to shout about this dystopian novel, it sizzles with a unique blend of wit, eloquence, and readability. Author Jasper Fforde’s bestselling Shades of Grey was published back in 2009 and here with great fanfare, we have the sequel. You really really don’t have to have read Shades of Grey in order to enjoy Red Side Story, but of course I’m going to recommend that you do. Eddie and Jayne live within a rigid society, likely to be assigned to the Green Room (death) after a disciplinary hearing, they push against the boundaries of their world. Jasper Fforde has created the most believable yet mind-bending future, from ridiculous rules to self-repairing roads, I was one hundred percent on board. The characters, each and every one of them, are marvellously authentic creations. Whether highlighting twisted obedience, outright cunning, or full on survival mode, they pop from the page with vivid colour. The social commentary allows you to ponder and really consider humanity while remaining enveloped within the story. The further in I explored, the more the plot sang, and the more I wanted to discover. I’m seriously invested in what might happen next so am hoping for more (and am prepared to wait!). This LoveReading Star Book and Liz Pick of the Month is an absolute cracker so it comes with a massive thumbs up from me. Red Side Story storms through any pre-conceived ideas with abandon, give yourself up to one heck of a story set in a futuristic UK.
Liz Robinson
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Red Side Story Synopsis
Jasper Fforde, the acclaimed SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER, invites you to imagine a world where your position in society depended on what bit of the colour spectrum you could see...
It's the UK, but not as we know it: civilisation has rebuilt after an unspoken 'Something that Happened' five hundred years before. Society is now colour-based, the strict levels of hierarchy dictated by the colours you can see, and the economy, health service and citizen's aspirations all dominated by visual colour, run by the shadowy National Colour in far-off Emerald City.
Out on the fringes of Red Sector West, Eddie Russett and Jane Grey have discovered that all is neither fair nor truthful within their cosy environment, and currently face trumped up charges that will see them die of the fatally soporific tones within the Green Room.
Negotiating the narrow boundaries of the Rules within their society, Jane and Edward must find out the truth of their world: What is it, where is it and even when it is. As they unpeel the lies that cloak their existence they come to the worrying conclusion that they may not be alone: That there might be a Somewhere Else beyond the sea, and more, Someone Else living there - and observing them all, purposefully unseen.
Red Side Story delves into the strictures of a society imposed on itself by itself, immovable dogma and the spirit of humans trying to love and survive and make sense of a world that makes no sense at all. Only it does, of course - you just have to look harder, look further, and forget everything you've ever been told.
'Fforde is one of literature's most enjoyable visionaries, and his long-awaited Shades of Grey sequel will be eagerly seized upon by his admirers... The jokes are excellent, the pacing breathless and the last line a classic' Observer
'Fforde's books are more than an ingenious idea. They are written with buoyant zest and are tautly plotted . . . and are embellished with the rich details of a Dickens or Pratchett' Independent
'No summaries can do justice to the sheer inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition, unexpectedness and originality' The Times
'Brilliantly inventive' Mail on Sunday
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781444763683 |
| Publication date: |
13th March 2025 |
| Author: |
Jasper Fforde |
| Publisher: |
Hodder an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
384 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Dystopian and utopian fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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