Reviews

The Card by Graham Rawle

anakuroma's review against another edition

4.0

TW: G slur for Romani people, P slur for gay men, infidelity, parental abandonment, stalking by side character


What an unfortunately boring cover to go with a incredibly beautifully illustrated and designed book!

Very much like a Lemony Snicket novel, with humour and an odd but vaugly possible, if not still utterly ridiculous plot device. You second guess yourself on the protagonist's mission, is it real? In his head? And by gosh can more books have fun symbols in the margins please?

thecommonswings's review

4.0

Rawle plays a very clever game here, with a flawed narrator cursed with seeing patterns everywhere, and a text littered with clues and hints to... something? Anything? Nothing? For a while I thought it was going to go seriously off the rails in the manner of the cursed Maxwell Sim which has put me off Jonathan Coe considerably: too clever by half, and backing itself into a corner while showing off and thusly needing a ludicrous bit of frantic fourth wall shoving to all come together. But no, Rawle rather sweetly is telling us more about the hero and his sense of confusion and loss in the world and how he clings to any signs of order to make sense of chaos. It’s if anything a book that builds itself up carefully and then swiftly reveals itself to be nothing to do with that design. It’s a book about a damaged man trying to understand a terrifying world. It’s a beautiful book visually and also in sentiment. It’s a bit messy and scrappy in places but the denouement is so nicely low key I think it’s worth the hiccups

han_cat's review against another edition

5.0

Wow, this really deserves being called a unique book! Clues, pictures and a totally off the wall plot. I really don't want to say much because the charm really lies with taking a chance and exploring yourself ...

Oh a minor criticism, the book is blummin heavy with the current paper it's printed on!