Reviews

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

dormilona's review against another edition

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5.0

Really great. Hits all the things I like in a story. History, romance, religion, feel-good tragedy, and a really great voice of a narrator. And unexpectedly funny!

emerygirl's review against another edition

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3.0

This book was... Interesting. The writing was superb, but the story line failed to keep me hooked. I'm afraid some of it was too deep for my simple mind.

cathybruce208's review against another edition

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5.0

This is a great book. Sad, funny, gross, and even romantic. The narrator is a truly repulsive character that you love anyway. If you like historical or psychological fiction, pick up this book.

keurimjanee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

boreasword's review against another edition

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3.0



It got better as the story progressed. I found myself enjoying the past life stories more than the present day story. Well played use of Dante's Inferno. Well researched, but some of the descriptive writing is so "purple" that I actually groaned in a few places.

On my Past Lives shelf, where I'm logging books I've read dealing with shared recollection of past lives. I'm writing a novel with this theme.

essiewakeman's review against another edition

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4.0

Gripping tale about a burn victim who meets a strange lady while he's in hospital. The book has stories within it, as well as the ongoing story of the burn victiim's struggle, and also an ongoing story that takes place in the 14th century. Sounds confusing, but I don't want to give too much away. It's a brilliant book, and I'd highly recommend it.

jgintrovertedreader's review against another edition

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4.0

The narrator of The Gargoyle (I'm pretty sure we never learn his name) begins his story with a horrific car crash that leaves him burned beyond recognition. He hasn't lived the best life: he's selfish, addicted to drugs, and a porn star. His beautiful, sexy "friends" take one look at him after the accident and never come back. But one day a woman, Marianne Engel, shows up in his room. He's never met her before, but she knows things about him that he's never told anyone, and she claims that theirs is a love going back seven hundred years.

I'm not entirely sure what I just read. This was a group read this month for The Next Best Book Club. I'm dying to go over there and see what others have to say, but I try very hard to write my reviews before reading other reviews or discussions. I want my thoughts to be my own, and I'm afraid that sneaking a peek somewhere else will change my own honest feelings. For what it's worth, here they are.

I really, really, really liked this, but there was a lot going on and there's still a lot left for me to think about. Don't you hate it when you know your review is never going to convey everything that you're thinking and feeling? That's what's going on here.

Marianne is a character that I won't forget anytime soon. She's a gifted carver of gargoyles, a gifted linguist, a gifted storyteller, and a woman with infinite love to give away. She teaches the cynical narrator about the true meaning of love through a series of stories about her friends, and a long narrative about the first time they met and loved. He sees what she means when she lives what she teaches as she cares for this burn victim whom she's never met before and even the staff and other patients at the hospital that is caring for him. Her stories and her actions are beautiful.

You know how everyone seems to think that Jane Austen has the best declarations of love ever written? I believe Andrew Davidson topped her. Yes, it was that good.

There's quite a bit about God and the nature of forgiveness and penance in here too. That was secondary, for me at least, to all the ways that people can find to truly love each other.

I know we aren't supposed to judge books by their covers, but let's face it--we all do. And I just love this cover. It's even better in person than in the picture.

I really think that's the best I can do. Mostly, you just need to read this soon if you're interested in it at all. But if you're a reader who needs a beginning, middle and end with no deviation from the storyline, this probably won't be a book for you. The scenes describing the crash and his initial treatment are fairly graphic, so the squeamish might want to stay away also. But if you don't mind some sort-of-tangents, a meandering plot, and plenty of food for thought, I really think you should pick this up. I mean all of that in the best possible way.

squirrelsohno's review against another edition

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4.0

So I will be honest - I heard about The Gargoyle, Andrew Davidson's first (and so far) only book which was released in 2008 to much hype and a crushing sense of a flop when all the hype didn't translate into US sales. Bibliodaze has spoken about this high advance, low sales at length before, both on the blog (find it here) and on Twitter (oh, hey, follow me at @bookbrats). When I asked people for suggestions on heavily hyped books with huge advances that failed to sell at the bookstore, the number one suggestion I heard was The Gargoyle.

Of course I had to read it.

You know what? This book really deserved a lot more than it got, because it is one of the strangest, most engrossing books I've read in the recent past. Even a few weeks after finishing it, this book has kind of stuck with me because of the subject matter and the questions about that ending. THAT ENDING.



The Gargoyle is the story of a nameless narrator who is a former porn star turned horrible burn victim who meets an unhinged escapee from the psychiatric ward while recovering in the hospital. When I went into this one, I was expecting a fantasy romance, but this book is much closer to a psychological romance examining the will to live, the will to love, and the will to hang on. Oh, and the borders between reality and fantasy, which this story blurs expertly. Everything about this novel is darkly romantic, following our narrator on the edge of suicide as he is visited by this woman who, while labeled as mentally disturbed, manages to bring the narrator back from the brink and teaches him how to live and love once more.

But where this novel excels is in the way it manages to weave in other stories of heartbreak and death to add to the romance. I know, I know, sounds weird, right? That's where the appeal of this novel was to me. Even when at times it seemed to drag along, the story always managed to come back to the heart of the story. Even in the darkness of this book, Davidson is an expert at bringing us back to the point, which is the tale between our narrator and Marianne Engel, the woman who found him and nursed him back to health while herself falling further and further towards the edge of sanity. By the end, as we pivot between a second person story from the middle ages to stories of Vikings and Japan and other stories with interconnected themes, the story continues to play at the edge of reality and fantasy where it exists in our own world. And my goodness, that is what made this book. This is why I wholeheartedly recommend this to others.

At the same time, though, this book was weird. And ambitious. And at times tedious. But it is so worth it to trudge through the strangeness and keep your grasp on the heart of this tale - the story of a woman and a burn patient that might be connected by more than this life. It makes you think and makes you hold onto every word breathlessly by the end. Maybe that's why this book wasn't a success - it was very demanding for the average reader, but at the same time so accessible. It came out almost seven years ago now, but maybe you should pick up a copy and find out what you were missing in 2008.

VERDICT: Well, yeah, this book was probably a financial flop, but this ambitious tale of romance on the borders of literary fiction, psychological thriller, and fantasy is engrossing, compelling, and a really good read.

ginbottle's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

An imaginative life affirming romantic novel that explores the rewards life can offer when you penetrate the superficial.

Although I found the early part of the book a little uncomfortable, because I am squeamish, there was nothing gratuitous about it and the prose was both fascinating and compelling, 

bookthia's review against another edition

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Too graphic for injury, drug and violence. Did not connect with story.  Hated protagonist.