okay it's been a year of sitting on my shelf, I'm just gonna have to Mark this abandoned and move on. maybe later I will find the energy again to read this lol, but it's like a job.

I was enjoying the experience though, just a lot of time investment

Well... At least I can say I've read it.

3.5 stars. I thought this was going to change my life and all it did was take up 3 whole weeks of my precious summer!!

The ‘ergodic’ element is definitely interesting and made for a fun read, but I think using the actual words to emulate the chaos and lack of center of literary deconstruction and postmodernism is much more effective (Auster’s City of Glass, for example). The metafiction themes and typesetting probably felt way more revolutionary in 2000. In conclusion I’ve been reading too much theory to be impressed by this, and it was generally unsatisfying!

For the adventurous reader who enjoys a puzzling story.

I was really looking forward to the quirkiness this book promised. I had heard it's a tough read, and just flipping through it proved that with some of the pages having only a couple of words, paragraphs written upside down or even backwards, and footnotes upon footnotes (making reading rhythm somewhat broken). The first few hundred pages were fascinating as the story builds, and freaky tales unfold. However, as I moved into the last hundred pages or so, I got a little tired of the psycho-babblings of a messed up crazy guy. I felt like the end of the book was a huge letdown with very little closure on any of the characters' perils. It seemed as if Danielewski simply got bored of writing it, and just trailed off.

I actually enjoyed the whackiness in which the book was formatted as I felt it added to how the broken story was communicated (very effective technique, IMO). It really spoke to the fear, confusion, and general "crazy" that the characters were experiencing throughout. If you've been curious about this book, I recommend it on the sheer fact that most of it was entertaining to read, but don't feel obligated to finish it lol.

From a purely technical point of view, this book is incredible, so 3 stars just for that. I cannot imagine the amount of effort it took to write and it's clearly a labour of many years of intensive planning and love.

Did I enjoy reading it?

I recently had the pleasure of having to remove wallpaper from my bedroom. It was old and had been painted over with some latex based paint designed by Satan himself. It was a tedious and boring job. The wallpaper would break into nail size pieces that you'd have to pick one by one for hours. Sometimes, you'd pull over a corner and a nice big piece would come off in such a perfect and satisfying way that the whole experience almost felt like fun. Until the next piece didn't.

That's what reading this book was like.

Would I read it again?
I'd rather die.

Sorry Rick!

This is unlike anything I've read or will read. Don't quite know what to make of it but it is brilliant, and I feel there's so much more I am missing that would complete the partial picture of the meaning I have now. Probably one of the few books I will read again.