My initial reading was courtesy of the local library. Yes, I had seen Blair Witch previously at the theatre and felt empty afterwards. One could also ditto the fact that I had read Infinite Jest by this point, the first time, if I may smug.

Everything worked for me during that initial reading. There were just enough fuck-ups surrounding me that the authorial tension was palpable. I found a great copy a few years later and I found myself drawn after my wife and I bought a house, the cause is obvious.

I bought a copy for my best friend last year and have been badgering my friends to select it for a group read.

Here is a truly haunting review which affords the novel justice: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/416206083
2016 -- plunging in again. My birthday afforded the chance to reflect on my younger self's first reading, a time emblazoned with dysfunction yet hope. There was a golden hope about things, a progress, a shock of the new. Now I find myself immobilized by the rampant daddy issues in the novel. The almost autistic distancing via footnotes and the whirl of the cursed condition leaves its hosts/victims lost in serial annotations. Somehow I find this fitting and terrifying.