I would like to first point out that I love Mark Z Danielewski and all that he has written. As a graphic design graduate I was mind blown when I read my first book by him, like Oh Em Geeeeeeee.
Fangirl time over; I really enjoyed reading these, I really did. There was an article that I had read while I was working on this series about how Danielewski I guess you could say sub-formats [??] his books as a form of visual media. House of Leaves is seen as a movie script, Only Revolutions is a song, so The Familiar is a TV series where this set of five is supposed to be the first season. There is a lot of say about this turning into a 25-26 volume series depending on how well this season does. In the meantime, start with the beginning.
Every volume by itself was different in how much I invested in it; in a way it is a show where there is a period of introductions and feeling out characters and their arcs, there is a period that is slow while you clearly pick your favorite character to the next point, which is you are basically emotionally invested and want to see them through to the end. Being real, I became irritated with Astair; she seems like the kind of person I wouldn’t want to be. I became invested with those who weren’t directly affiliated with the Ibrahims [Luther, Schnorhk, Oz, Isadorno] just for the fact that they had to be connected somehow, but you never know how until pieces fall into place.
For those who have not read a Danielewski book before, I would say that The Familiar is a good place to start. Every book he writes, and for this I lump this series into one, is formatted differently, and tend to be hard to get through if you plan on simply diving in from cover to cover. You’ll see when I eventually do House of Leaves, or Only Revolutions. I would call this series training wheels should you enjoy it and want to read his other stuff. For those who have read his books, completely disregard this paragraph of garbage.
For the record I still have and will be keeping these books. If you want your own copies, I would start here.
Also, there are book clubs/discussion groups on Danielewski’s Facebook page for all of his books in case you were wanting to get involved. His books have been used in psychology classes so discussion is highly encouraged. We can even start one here if we wanted to.
10/10
Chofa Times on the Chofa 