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A review by pseyeyy
Ship of Theseus by J.J. Abrams
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I have mixed feelings about this one. The book *feels* satisfying to flip through. It even smells like an older library book. I opted to read through the entire thing (annotations included) in one go and didn’t find it too overwhelming given that each “pass” by Jen and Eric is color coded. They break this pattern in a few places (mentions of Eric’s hurt leg in the red/purple pass don’t occur in order, nor does the fallout of Jen’s parents’ visit), but using these events as landmarks helps to ground you as you read.
The “Ship of Theseus” text takes a back seat to the marginalia. It is primarily a vehicle for the meta narrative and wouldn’t stand well alone. I found its themes of identity and choice (etc.) to be on the nose. The surreal elements were fun- especially the implications of time distortion and alternate “realities” for S. and Sola. Despite this, it remains unfortunately plain. I kept trying to find meaningful excerpts to highlight, hoping they’d be relevant to some greater mystery or symbolism, and coming up short. Everything important was already highlighted by Eric or Jen- or laid out directly in the text.
By the mid-late half, Eric and Jen’s discussions of love and the meaning of life become cloying and repetitive. The stalker/arson side plot never goes anywhere. In fact- nothing much goes anywhere at all. You could read the book backwards and the experience would stay the same. I’m left not buying that the stakes were ever really high for Jen and Eric.
As a final side note- I wish that the ciphers solved by Jen were written out away from the footnotes. It’s really hard to ignore the answer spelled out in bold text when you’re trying to collect info from the footnotes before giving it a go yourself.
All that being said- I do recommend reading it if this kind of fiction is your thing! If only for the experience, not necessarily the substance.
I can’t tell if I’m annoyed or not that a genuine answer to this mystery could be “the real V.M. Stratka was the friends we made along the way.”
The “Ship of Theseus” text takes a back seat to the marginalia. It is primarily a vehicle for the meta narrative and wouldn’t stand well alone. I found its themes of identity and choice (etc.) to be on the nose. The surreal elements were fun- especially the implications of time distortion and alternate “realities” for S. and Sola. Despite this, it remains unfortunately plain. I kept trying to find meaningful excerpts to highlight, hoping they’d be relevant to some greater mystery or symbolism, and coming up short. Everything important was already highlighted by Eric or Jen- or laid out directly in the text.
By the mid-late half, Eric and Jen’s discussions of love and the meaning of life become cloying and repetitive. The stalker/arson side plot never goes anywhere. In fact- nothing much goes anywhere at all. You could read the book backwards and the experience would stay the same. I’m left not buying that the stakes were ever really high for Jen and Eric.
As a final side note- I wish that the ciphers solved by Jen were written out away from the footnotes. It’s really hard to ignore the answer spelled out in bold text when you’re trying to collect info from the footnotes before giving it a go yourself.
All that being said- I do recommend reading it if this kind of fiction is your thing! If only for the experience, not necessarily the substance.