Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information as well as identity, "The Raw Shark Texts" is ultimately a novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love.
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Moving with the pace and momentum of a superb thriller, exploring ideas about language and information as well as identity, "The Raw Shark Texts" is ultimately a novel about the magnitude of love and the devastating effect of losing that love.
Read Less
This was a recommendation because I enjoyed House of Leaves. The Raw Shark Texts does not even compare to House of Leaves. I had to stop reading the book around page 100. Just a really awful book.
Spacemunki
Feb 2, 2009
A Kick in the Pants
Similar to House of Leaves in many ways. Sort of attempts to be a sprawling 'idea novel' and a tightly wound horror novel at the same moment. It's really more of a quick and exciting literary roll in the hay than a long term love affair. I appreaciate what the author has tried to do (afterall, genre-bending novels like these rarely come off without a hitch), I just think that there were loose strings where there should have been clean edges and clean edges where a little fraying may have made the structure more beleiveable and intriguing. It was still a clever way of dealing with the concepts of grief and mental illness without shoving a lot of melodramatic psychobabble down the reader's throat.
sarahkatherine
Jul 24, 2008
**SPOILER ALERT**
"it's ok" is really the best rating that i can give this book. the start was definitely intriguing, if more than a little unbelievable, but by the middle of the book i was a bit bored and only willing to stick it out for the payoff of having two questions answered: 1. who/what killed Clio Aames? 2. what became of Gavin the kitten who was mentioned on page 41? well the answer to #1 was eventually revealed but no mention was given again regarding the fictional feline or his whereabouts. i'm still hung up on that. i was also annoyed at the remaking of the JAWS climax to wrap up the story. 'conceptual' or not, it seemed like a blatant rip-off of the film. if i want to visualize a shark being blown to smithereens i will put in the dvd. besides an oxygen tank will beat a laptop any day. another sore spot with the ending was the overused...it was all just in the protagonist's mind...oh wait...but maybe it wasn't...oh well.. i guess we'll never know...aw shucks that's clever! but by that point i found myself not really caring either way which was probably not the reaction the author was going for. i'm more concerned about the apparently neglected, abandoned, deceased, or perhaps, 'conceptual' cat. poor gavin.
