So, it's told backwards and forwards? There was a musical like that- The Last 5 Years.

I'm usually not a fan of gimmicky books, either, so make of this what you will.

I loved Danielewski's House of Leaves, which could be uncharitably and correctly described as "gimmicky": I read it feverishly, couldn't shut up about it, read it again and again in different sequences as suggested by the nontraditional text, and finally wished I could eradicate my memory of it so I could read it again for the first time.

I loved how the text structure produced a variety of narrative streams and engaged the reader in a more complex interaction in constructing the flow of the story. I'll admit that one particular character's narrative chafed me, and I rolled my eyes at him... which was probably part of the author's intent.

A couple of months ago, I picked up Only Revolutions from the library. It sat on my bedstand for a week. Every night, I picked it up and read the first page or two, realized that I'd forgotten whatever I'd just read, re-read it, flipped the book to read the other stream of narrative, exhaled noisily, put it down.

Finally, I leafed through to see if it appealed at all.

It didn't.

I never even renewed it, just took it back.

Was that helpful?

I'd love to hear thoughts from people who actually, y'know, read it.

Not just backwards and forwards, TPS. Each page has like 3 or 4 narratives. One's in big text in the middle of the page. One's in smaller text in the margin. One's upside down like a footnote. And then you turn the book upside down and backwards, and it's the same thing, only apparently from a different narrator.

Plus, every incidence of the letter O or number 0 is in color.

I mean, come on!

It sort of reminds me of a set of assembly instructions for a bookshelf, where if you read it from the opposite cover, the instructions are in Spanish.

Elsa, your report helps, if only to tell me that my hesitance is justified. ;)

Not just backwards and forwards, TPS. Each page has like 3 or 4 narratives. One's in big text in the middle of the page. One's in smaller text in the margin. One's upside down like a footnote. And then you turn the book upside down and backwards, and it's the same thing, only apparently from a different narrator.

This doesn't appeal at all.

Mudpuppie - I got about 20 pages in and gave up. I was curious about it from the hype on House of Leaves, but this was just masturbatory intellectual claptrap(tm).

Books have to have a narrative drive that isn't constantly being turned on it's ass and not allowed to breathe. This book wasn't about plot, characters or arc, it was about book design.

I'll just contribute that I read House of Leaves, and while I'm glad I did, it was a pain in the ass. However, it was also so FUCKING SCARY that I locked it outside the house when I slept. I was afraid of the book, itself.

Ambrosia Voyeur, I was housesitting forgoodnesssakeohmy at an isolated, sprawling place in the woods when I read House of Leaves. Eeeek!

Additionally [mild spoiler], I've long known that architectural anomalies like those are a big spooky nerve-trigger for me.

I loved it.

I had a point, I swear.

The labyrinthian style of the text, with its unexpected and sometimes frustrating twists and turns, suited House of Leaves thematically and, to my mind, conveyed some of the bewilderment and panic of the characters.

I vividly remember the frustration, irritation, and anxiety I felt when reading one particularly tense passage during which the story was printed only a few words to a page. I couldn't flip the pages fast enough to keep up with my anxiety. Very annoying. Very effective.

I've heard plenty of people describe the complicated typesetting in House of Leaves as tortured, pretentious, and annoying. I can see why people feel that way. But I enjoyed the levels of self-reflection, of complex interaction, and particularly the way that those self-referential passages and nestings of text cast doubt on the narrators. And I think the typesetting makes the book more than a simple codex: it feels like an artifact the story, which explains (for example) Ambrosia Voyeur's strong reaction to it.

Maybe Only Revolutions benefits from the same treatment. But the biggest risk with this complicated, self-conscious style of text is necessarily that you're challenging readers to interact with the writing in an unpredictable way. We can't simply open at page one and start reading; we have to find the way in. With Only Revolutions, I just never found the entryway in to the story. There was no hook to grab me the way that H of L did.

I dug House of Leaves, and thought the textual polymorphism was appropriate for the narrative. I read it as a straight-up horror novel, and everything else was gravy.

I read Only Revolutions. Well, about half of it. Nabokov and David Foster Wallace it ain't. If you can't tell a straightforward story well, why would you think it would be improved by telling it backwards? Too clever by half. Literally.

Exactly what Lipstick Thespian said. I wasted my money on that book. It is half sleaze and half the aforementioned PIC™

I'm late.
And I have nothing to add.
But I wanted to say I FREAKING LOVED HOUSE OF LEAVES.

And I seriously punched a friend of mine in the chest when she sold her car and forgot my copy in the backseat.