Red Side Story (#1,221) is the sequel to Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, but you can read this novel all by itself without having too much difficulty figuring out what happened in the first book. Chromatacia is a land where your fate is determined by which color spectrum of light you can see, and how strongly you perceive that color. The higher your sensitivity to it, the higher you are socially.
Eddie Russet is a strong Red, but he and his companion Jane Brunswick, a Green, are accused of murdering a Yellow while on an expedition for the Collective. If they are found guilty (which they most certainly will be), it's off to the Green Room with them, where they will be executed by soporific exposure to Green.
Not only are Eddie and Jane not guilty, but their venture beyond the Outer Boundaries of East Carmine have raised many questions for the pair. Things they've been told all their lives just don't seem to be adding up... And just who is running the show?
Wildly imaginative, this book is provocative in its rendering of the social order (which is a literal thing in the book!) It will make you think as you laugh at the improbableness of so many of the situations here. Great fodder for a book club!
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