Red Side Story

After the events of [Shades of Grey], Eddie Russett is back and ready to reluctantly face the music in his trial for Courtland's death, despite his new status as the highest-ranking Red in East Carmine. He and Jane are continuing their now illicit relationship (Jane's Ishihara turned her from Grey to Green) even though Eddie's engagement to Violet deMauve is proceeding full speed ahead. Eddie and Jane continue to find out more about the Something That Happened and the Previous -- until it seems they may have discovered a little too much.

15 years between books, but Fforde picks up right where he left off. I'm very glad I reread Shades of Grey before diving into this one, and I was very pleased that 1. Shades of Grey totally holds up and show more 2. Red Side Story is an excellent sequel. Fforde's writing is as wacky as ever and I enjoyed learning more about Chromatica and its quirks. Can't wait for book 3 and I really hope it's coming as quickly as Fforde says it is! 5 stars. show less

Finally, the long-awaited sequel to Shades of Grey! As it had been thirteen years, I had to skim over the first book before I started this. We pick up immediately where the first book left off and it is a non-stop rollercoaster. The plotting and manoeuvring were tight and top-notch. As a patient fan, I appreciated the way Fforde explored and expanded on this world, and the way he exploded or resolved certain plotlines.

The best thing among this book of best things is the character development. Violet's arc was unexpected and yet true to form. I am also in awe of Fforde's escalation. The first book and also his usual writing style can make the world feel more like a cartoon dystopia but this book allowed more of the Hunger Games / show more target="_top">Tomorrow When the War Began starkness to bleed through.

I can't imagine how ambitious the third book will have to be to accommodate the grenade that Fforde detonated. Will the 2028 deadline be met? Doesn't matter, I'd read it even if it takes another thirteen years. show less

There's a feeling you get when reading a certain type of book. A sense of calm and wonder settles over you, letting you know you are being transported to another world. A world that is fascinating and alien and will allow you to completely disappear into it for hours. Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde is that kind of book.

Chromatica is as unique and vivid as Tolkien's Middle Earth or any other created universe you care to name. Only much more humor-filled.

Society in Chromatica is hierarchically governed by what color you can see, and to what degree you can see that color. Purple, yellow, and red are at the top, green at the bottom, and grey, those who can see no color to any significant degree are the much despised but essential working show more class.

Despite 15 years between books, Red Side Story picks up right where Shades of Grey left off. Eddie Russett who can see more than 86 percent red (87 percent if you round up), has relocated to the remote East Carmine along with Jane Grey, who recently discovered she can see a small degree of green. Their relationship is illicit, as Eddie is engaged to a high-seeing purple, Violet deMauve. Violet detests Eddie, but his high percentage of red will keep the family line from straying into the less desirable blue.

The world of Chromatica is built on the remnants of a previous civilization in a future sort of England. Objects or machines they can't understand are forbidden or ignored under a rigid set of rules that are periodically and haphazardly updated. For example, gloves are forbidden to be worn but required to be manufactured. Bending, evading, or flat-out ignoring the rules is almost an art form. Cause too much of a problem and you may become afflicted with the Mildew, a mysterious disease that seems to affect only the troublemakers.

Eddie and Jane know there are mysteries to be solved about their world and how such an unjust society came to be. They are determined to make changes, no matter how long it takes or how much danger they find themselves in.

Any Jasper Fforde novel is also going to be humorous. Filled with puns, situational humor, and downright amusing characters. Red Side Story has such a compelling plot that the humor sometimes catches you off-guard, resulting in several laugh-out-loud moments. The world-building is incredibly complex and the characters are so compelling you could spend a library full of books just following them around.

The ending of the story is surprising, satisfying, and for me, quite emotional. This would be an amazing duology if the Shades of Grey story ends here. It is also clear that this world has many more stories to tell. I would love to return to this world, but even if there are no more books in this world, this is one of my favorite series of all time.

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher. show less

by the end of this book i really understood why this took like 15 years after the first one, there is some really weird stuff about consent that goes into a kind of extended novel-of-ideas diversion and like, extremely clear to me that this was heavily updated and retooled around 2015, lol. it was slow to get into because there was SO much rehashing, but also, i seem to have lost my copy of shades of grey in a recent move, so like the few things i wanted to go back and check, i couldn't, which is just a personal frustration but still. anyway it picked up eventually and there was a point when i realised this was going to end on a cliffy and i got SOOOO mad lol, but the escalating action held my attention, and by the end i was having show more quite a lot of fun. now when's the next one coming out show less

Red Side Story is Jasper Fforde's long-awaited sequel to Shades of Grey, with 15 years to read the books. It helps to have read the previous novel, and probably more recently than I have, because this is one of the most complex fantastical/satirical worlds Fforde has ever created. In short, in the far future with devolved technology, the people of what was once Wales live in a caste society based on the the part of the color spectrum they can see. All of Fforde's novels of dystopian in some way, and this may the darkest and most disturbing dystopia of all. The book does have a lot of Fforde's trademark humor and wordplay, but that serves to accentuate some of the real messed up stuff.

In the first novel, Eddie of the high-caste Reds met show more and fell in love with Jane from lowest ranking Greys. Having begun to resist the oppressive society, Eddie and Jane continue to meet illicitly and uncover deeper secrets of the world they live in while they await a trial that could end in their extermination. Eddie is also forced into marriage with the snobby Violet, who treats him basically as breeding stock (it's very pointed challenge to reader expectations that the male protagonist lacks bodily autonomy in this society). There are a number of unexpected twists in this story and I enjoyed it more than its predecessor, although I think that the prose often gets bogged down with explanations of how this world works.

Fforde is working and a third and final novel in the series, and we shouldn't have to wait as long if it comes out when expected in 2028. show less

Following the events of [Shades of Grey], Eddie is adjusting to his new role as a high-ranking Red, while secretly seeing Jane (spoilers for Shades of Grey) behind Violet’s back. Jane, Eddie, and Tommo are set to be sentenced for the murder of Courtland, but that must wait until after Violet and Eddie officially get married (to legitimize their already-concieved baby) and Jane is needed to represent East Carmine in the gyrobike race at Jollity Fair, an annual carnival. Jane and Eddie continue to discover more uncomfortable truths about Chromatacia, until they find out too many and must take action.

It is incredibly hard to go back to a world from 15 years ago, for the reader and, I imagine, the author. This is a very different book show more from Shades of Grey. It feels less whimsical, more dark and a little angry. I am also darker and angrier than I was 15 years ago. There is still a lot of whimsy here, and the writing is still hilarious. It’s deeper, in a way that I find very satisfying. Some pretty unexpected things happened toward the end, which did make me cry. I’m really looking forward to what happens next. show less

Fifteen years is a long time to wait for a sequel. Jasper Fforde has said that he never planned to write a sequel to Shades of Grey, a story about a group of English villages where your color perception determines your social status. Readers kept asking him what happened next, so he finally had to figure it out. Red Side Story is the result.
Eddie Russett and Jane Grey are back struggling against the silly rules that constrain life in the area. The constraints should not be taken lightly. You do not want to be sent to the Green Room, put on a train to Emerald City, or catch a bad case of Mildew. And then there is ball lightning that can take out whole communities. There are dead astronauts, a socially invisible man named Baxter, and a show more scarcity of spoons. Fforde’s whimsical satire points several directions at once, but his prose is always witty. Douglas Adams was one of Fforde’s favorite writers, and it shows. show less