Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron

Jasper Fforde's novel, Shades of Grey, is a complete mind fuck. This book is weird, deliciously so, but also in a way that can kind of make your head hurt. It throws you in to a far-future dystopia in which everyone's perception of color is greatly reduced and class is determined by how much and what part of the color spectrum they can see.

This book doesn't hold your hand. It throws you in the deep end and expects you to figure things out. The language is strange and references to the past (our society) are always mangled. But if you can stick with it, the rewards are great. The humor is subtle, but wonderful. The characters are fascinating and wholly real. And the society is just endlessly fascinating.

I had to read this book in bits and pieces, taking breaks to absorb everything. That said, it picks up towards the end, and I flew through the last 100 pages or so. There's a ton of world-building in the beginning, and half the fun was figuring out which bits were crucial to the plot and which bits were just colorful background (no doubt crucial to the plots of future books).

The ending blindsided me, which doesn't happen often. But it was fantastic, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next book. Though I am glad to be able to give my brain a bit of a break before it comes out.

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