Shades of Grey: A Novel
By Jasper Fforde
Unlike One of Our Thursdays is Missing which feels like it should be renamed Lost in a Dreary Sequel, Shades of Grey is the first book in a planned series, set in a whole new world. Which means fresh fodder for Fforde to paint out this new world, in Reds, Greens, Yellows, Greys etc – a Colourchromatic society with strict hierarchy based on what natural colours and how strongly you can perceive them.
The build up is somewhat slow, but it takes time to paint a new world and to feel our way into the world we’ve just been dropped into, and I personally enjoy this sort of induction. The protagonist (a Red) is also a little boring in the beginning, and deliberately dense sometimes, but the novel picks up once he meets his love interest, the Grey with a retrousse nose and something to hide.
Shades of Grey is ultimately a dystopia novel, with a little romance and mystery thrown in to keep the pages turning. The mix is just nice for me, reeling me in with the fluff while the social issues grow larger and larger in the background. Fforde doesn’t go that deep with the social issues in this novel – just the usual blindness to segregation, order & conformity vs ‘chaos’ & individuality, whether the end justifies the means debate. You know which way you’re supposed to side in the issues laid out in this Colourchromatic world, but there are two more books to go, and the ethical dilemmas could get darker and greyer. I hold out hope! In any case, I like this new world and I’ve gotten attached to the characters – so I will be waiting eagerly for the next installation in this series.
Reread value: 3.5/5 (higher if the next 2 in the planned trilogy are excellent)
