S.

Title: S.
Author: Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams
Pub Date: 2013
Genre: Fiction
Nutshell: Girl finds boy's book, boy and girl make margin notes, mysteries are solved, love happens and doesn't happen.

I read this pretty much exclusively because it seemed enough like House of Leaves to scratch that itch, and also because I really liked what I knew about the concept. My final opinion? There were some points that never really got resolved, and the secondary story was missing some parts, and the narrative style is certainly not for everyone, but I rather liked it. 

There are several stories going on within S. There the is surface narrative of the novel Ship of Theseus, written by V.M. Straka. There is the narrative being written by the guy and the girl who are corresponding within the margins with each other. There is the underlying narrative of what exactly Straka is trying to say within Ship of Theseus. There is another underlying narrative about Straka himself -- who he was, what he stood for, who he was involved with. There are at least three love stories, maybe four. There is intrigue and murder and plotting and backstabbing and theft.

As usual, I don't want to spoil anything, so I will confine this review to non-plot related matters. This is not a conventional narrative. The plot of the novel is a bit strange, but nothing particularly difficult. But a reader will either find the margin notes awesome or irritating. I can sort of compare it in some ways to whether you prefer your foreign language films dubbed or subtitled. I am a subtitle person, and I didn't have much issue in reading the text, footnotes, and margin notes all together as they came up. But I am also a lit major, so that may not be everyone's cup of tea. There are several ways to read the book: You can do it like I did, reading everything at once. You can read the novel first then all the margin notes. Or you can (as I will be doing on my re-read now that I know the novel), make several passes through the book and read the margin notes in sequential order, as noted by the ink colors used. 

This does not even take the inserts into consideration. The book comes with postcards, letters, cards and various other ephemera upon which the margin authors correspond with each other and some outside people. These are inserted into the text at various points when it more or less makes sense within the narrative. If they fall out, there are online resources that will tell you where they belong. For this reason, you probably don't want to fool with borrowing a copy from the library or getting one used unless you're sure it has all the inserts.

Also, a note on the novel Ship of Theseus -- I don't know who was responsible for designing the book, but it's perfect. The cover is exactly what I've seen on any number of contemporary 1950s books. The pages are expertly stained. It even smells old. It's a very visceral experience and one I particularly enjoyed when I opened it, book nerd that I am. 

This is a work that requires some time and effort and probably at least two passes to fully understand. Plot points that I felt may have been disregarded may just be in the notes somewhere. Or they may have been simply disregarded -- it was an idea of J.J. Abrams' after all, and he's not best known for wrapping everything up all the time. But basically, this is a challenging read. Nothing about the story itself is particularly challenging -- at the end of the day, it's fairly straightforward -- both the novel text and the margin story. But the way it's told makes it a bit more difficult and I wouldn't recommend it for someone who just wants an easy read. This took a couple weeks to get through and I'll likely need to read it again before I have down that's in there. It's definitely a book that is also an experience, and if you want there are several online websites that can immerse you further into the world of it.