Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May, The Familiar

This book is absolutely amazing. It is unlike anything I have very read before in the best way possible. It lures you in with a slow start. The format takes a bit to get used to, but by the end of the book The Familiar has grabbed you and it won't let go.

Absolutely amazing start to finish. May appear slow paced, but the beauty is in the details: a lot more here than the naked eye can catch at first glance. Well worth the extra effort, as all of Danielewski's works are. Don't wait for vol. 27 to check out the series.

If you enjoyed House of Leaves, you will *love* The Familiar. Pure MZD, all the way through. Even if HoL wasn't your thing, this is its own unique animal. 5 stars. It takes a little effort, but everything in life worth anything does.

A worthy addition to the Danielewski ouevre, THE FAMILIAR is an accessible entry-point for readers unfamiliar with his previous works, while staying true to Danielewski's chaotic beauty and vision. Recommended for fans of High Modernism, Noir Cinema, and Ergodic Literature.

I have read many negative reviews of The Familiar, today. I feel obligated to put out a positive review. This work is brilliant (what I have seen of it, I should say). I am through the first chapter and am already in love with it. This is a book for readers who want to be challenged, but it is not only dense but also light and playful. To me, it reflects what it is like to live in the modern world: it is strange, beautiful and sometime incomprehensible. The negative reviews posted on major websites seem to come from people who were bitter with the author for his previous works, and so be it. This isn't everyone's cup of tea (to be fair, I too am biased, but in the other direction). I believe The Familiar will find a wide audience. I am very happy that this book exists and I can't wait for more.

What. I've tried reading this book more than one time. I try keeping it at my desk at work to motivate me to read it. I'm halfway through and have skimmed the rest. I know there's some kind of "secret sub-plot" supposed to be happening, but it's just... It looks like a whole lot of words thrown together on a page, then made pretty. Or something along the lines of "15 year old girl tries writing deep, intellectual and artistic novel." I'm going to try to finish it but it's becoming increasingly difficult.

This book is indeed a challenge. But the challenge is to find within its 800+ pages anything of value. Beyond an occasional interestingly turned phrase, there is nothing. I felt as if I was reading text that could well have been composed by a computer. Admittedly I did not read this book from cover to cover but I did spend 2-3 hours sampling its contents and quit feeling that I had largely wasted my time. If this series does extend to the indicated 27 volumes I will view it as a sad waste of trees. Enough. I fear I can't come up with anything constructive to say.

I am a 59 year old female artist, living on the public dole, (eg: SSDI, food stamps and rental assistance). Hi Mom & Jack, Hi Michael, Winston, Eric, Pamela, and all the Quakers at Community Friends Meeting in Cinci, OHIO! I am not the brightest bulb in the box, fyi! I considered downloading this book because the review said it had 'lots of artwork'. But when I tried, it could not find my 'kindle for Mac'. This might be because my WD Elements external drive recently died a horrible death and is no longer! My ex-husband, Mike, just gave me his Kindle, which is perfect for me because it already has a PURPLE cover, which is my favorite color. When I owned a home, I painted it 3 shades of purple. My brother, Eric said I should have painted it WHITE. The new owners did just that! BORING! Now, of course, I can never own a home because all the government programs to help poor people get homes require you to be a FIRST TIME home owner. No programs for people who had brain injuries and spent all the money from the sale of their homes on their medical expenses!
Did I have a point here? Well, I looked at the free snippet and decided the art probably wasn't worth spending money on, seeing as I'm not sure where I'd download it. My Guardian is going to be mad.

Definitely look at these reviews and think of previous Danielewski books. I completely agree with the one other review. I have no idea if the novel is good or not because I couldn't get through more than a few pages. The format is mindnumbingly difficult and unreadable on your Kindle. You have to constantly skip in and out of panel mode. I returned the digital version and I'm going to order in paperback. This is the first book I've encountered that should not have been adapted to Kindle due to the format.

On Kindle - impossible to read because of layout and small size of text (which can not be enlarged) on many pages. Should be a warning on the kindle edition which makes that clear.
This review does not involve the writing. One star for publisher for issuing a kindle version without clarification.

This has nothing to with the actual content, but the vocabulary and highlight function don't work and the page I.e. font size is smaller. Just kind of annoying, especially with the words and sentence structure.

I loved "House Of Leaves," hated "Only Revolutions," and when I started to read "The Fifty-Year Sword," decided I had finally had enough of Danielewski's typographical games. Now, I hate him. 27 volumes of this crap? The book is beautifully crafted, but his gimmick is growing incredibly tiresome. Just man up and write a real book already.