Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
As frustrating as the first book, but just compelling enough to keep me reading. A brilliant, strange, 26-part mystery centering around a little girl and a found cat, with sci-fi and vaguely supernatural overtones. Xanther, the girl, is adorable. Not sure I can put up with the author's self-indulgent typesetting much longer, though.
fuck off fuck off fuck OFF with that ending if the next volume isn't out in like 1 day I don't know how I can continue to live
-------
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
I'm not sure why I read the second book. I didn't really care about any of the narratives by the end of the first one, but I think I trusted that there must be payoff in project as big as Danieliewski is attempting.
The style is so thick that wading through it overwhelms the narrative, and it's just not worth it for a story about a girl finding a cat in the street. Sure, there are more sinister things going on: some sort of Mexican gang stuff; a group of obscure computer programmer sorcerers or something. I started skipping whole chapters because I just didn't care enough to slog through the poor open-field poetry and lazy dialogue. I think I gave it a good try but after two 800+ page books about nothing, I'm done.
The style is so thick that wading through it overwhelms the narrative, and it's just not worth it for a story about a girl finding a cat in the street. Sure, there are more sinister things going on: some sort of Mexican gang stuff; a group of obscure computer programmer sorcerers or something. I started skipping whole chapters because I just didn't care enough to slog through the poor open-field poetry and lazy dialogue. I think I gave it a good try but after two 800+ page books about nothing, I'm done.
I still don’t know how to feel about this series. After reading the first book I was unsure I wanted to continue, and after I finally decided to take the plunge I find I have the same feeling again.
I really, really enjoy the concept of The Familiar. The style is so cool; I love the setup, and I think Mark Danieleswski is an insane genius for coming up with an idea for a 28 (?) book series. It’s incredibly commendable, and I think the effort and creativity he is putting into this series is amazing.
The story itself becomes a little more muddled for me. I think at the heart of it, I like the idea of Xanther and her cat (because essentially, that’s what the story is), but there’s a lot of extras that just leave me confused. I still don’t know who half of the characters are, nor their relevance to the plot. I know this is still an early book and it might take a while into the series to understand their significance, but right now I have a hard time reading from a character’s perspective when I don’t quite understand who they are.
That also leads on to the style/format of the book. Aesthetically, it looks hella cool. When reading, less so. Again, I think the concept for the wonky format and variety of dialects for each character is such a cool idea, but half of the time I can’t even read a section because the dialect is so convoluted or just not even in English.
I want to continue the story, but it becomes too much of a struggle to weed through the difficult storylines that Danielewski presents. We’ll find out if I ever have the effort to pick up the next one, or to dedicate like 10 more years and finish the series.
I really, really enjoy the concept of The Familiar. The style is so cool; I love the setup, and I think Mark Danieleswski is an insane genius for coming up with an idea for a 28 (?) book series. It’s incredibly commendable, and I think the effort and creativity he is putting into this series is amazing.
The story itself becomes a little more muddled for me. I think at the heart of it, I like the idea of Xanther and her cat (because essentially, that’s what the story is), but there’s a lot of extras that just leave me confused. I still don’t know who half of the characters are, nor their relevance to the plot. I know this is still an early book and it might take a while into the series to understand their significance, but right now I have a hard time reading from a character’s perspective when I don’t quite understand who they are.
That also leads on to the style/format of the book. Aesthetically, it looks hella cool. When reading, less so. Again, I think the concept for the wonky format and variety of dialects for each character is such a cool idea, but half of the time I can’t even read a section because the dialect is so convoluted or just not even in English.
I want to continue the story, but it becomes too much of a struggle to weed through the difficult storylines that Danielewski presents. We’ll find out if I ever have the effort to pick up the next one, or to dedicate like 10 more years and finish the series.
This project is going to take some work. After picking up vol 2 and glancing through the opening for a bit, I realized that I didn't feel that confident in jumping back into the myriad story lines, so I went back and reread volume 1. Clearly, this is not a strategy that will work for the proposed 27 volumes. Anyway, rereading vol. 1 was fun and vol. 2 was excellent, leaving me wishing that volume 3 was on the pile next to my chair -- cliffhangers galore.