The Raw Shark Texts
Ratings69
Average rating4
Really solid beginning, caught my attention and held my intrigue. I really liked how conceptual everything was , and the idea of thought sharks is so brilliant. However, towards the ending, the story headed towards a romance, and did concentrate a lot on the romance plot. Which i thought was weird. And the whole conceptual thing fell apart a little for me, things went all over the place.
Still, one of the most unique books I've read and i enjoyed the experience of it.
consider my reading slump officially over, i tore through this shit in a little under 24 hours
oddly compelling and a damn fun read. the only place this falters is the romantic subplot, with scout being a bit underdeveloped yet it's not a major drawback. not sure how i'd classify this asides from some loose genre terms and obvious postmodern influences, but whatever this is, its completely my thing haha
also: the third lightbulb fragment was where this totally clicked with me. i wasnt totally invested on an emotional level but the described conversations with clio's father genuinely broke my heart.
above all i really like how Hall describes such mundane things in a genuinely interesting way, which puts a great edge to the amnesia premise. cool writing style for sure, i'd love to read more in a similar vein
I really wanted to like this one. The idea of a predator of the mind manifesting in the real world is interesting, but I felt this could have benefitted from about another 100 pages.
This is my second read of this book. I want to love it, and for a long way through, I do. Then it all falls apart in the third act. I'll likely read it again in a few years, after the specifics fade from my memories.
Wonderful, exciting magical realism. I was in for a ride, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
It isn't for everyone, but as I enjoyed Anansi's boys, and American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and most books by Svend Åge Madsen this book was right up my ally.
But of a slow start, but once it got going I had a hard time putting it down!
Took me a while to get into it, but the concept is excellent and Hall doesn't assume the reader is an idiot - I get the feeling I'm going to need to read it again and hunt down the unchapters though...
I loved it. After finishing it, it couldn't leave my mind.
What begins as a story of mental breakdown after a great loss, evolves in a full adventure with monsters, action and even secret societies. It's clever and mind-bending with the right touch of emotion. I really really loved the ending.
The book struck me as a sort of cross between The Eyre Affair and House of Leaves, combining the sort of inventive alternate realities of Fforde with the pomo typographical play of Danielewski. As with most X meets Y formulations, this one does not really do the book justice. Despite Hall's invetive metatextual world of word sharks, un-spaces, thought virus tycoons and conceptual boats the emotional core of the story is the protagonist's attempts to come to grips with the past and his own grief, guilt, memory. (A comparison with the movie Memento might also be apt, though Shark is more hopeful, less nihilistic.) An engaging, playful, but also very moving book.
