The one thing bothering me most is that the book is full of potential, but unfortunately the author doesn't seem to notice it. The potential lies in the theory that the world, society, gender, whatever, is a construction of words and language - what will happen when the basic construction material is taken away by a word/memory-eating shark, when someone sees the "matrix" and can finally question it? But blah, as I read further, it became clearer and clearer that this was going to turn out to be a general dull-minded romance without a "deeper meaning" (or at least the meaning got lost along the way). ( )

An incredible concept, full marks for imaginative effort. In the end he starts too many narrative hares to be able to chase them all down, and the massive plot holes left me asking a lot of questions for a long time afterward - but well worth reading anyway for a completely mind-blowing experience. ( )

This book starts out strong with an interesting idea. It creates a conceptual world where the idea of a shark is just as damaging as a real shark. This shark and other conceptual animals can eat your memories, make you more passive, or keep you in a mental rut. (The Shark even accounts for Alzheimer patients.) However, throughout the book, you are left to wonder if this is real, or is he crazy. It treats the conceptual ideas of things very seriously in the beginning, but as the story gets more far-fetched (even to the main character), you begin to wonder if his psychiatrist is right and that he has a mental disorder. The ending will also re-inforce that with its ambiguous ending. More than anything, I think the ending sequence (but not the ending itself), was very annoying. It's one thing to hint or allude to something, but when you re-create the ending of Jaws and just insert the devices of the book, it isn't very interesting. That may be the point of the ending, I just didn't enjoy it as much.Overall, I enjoyed the book and concepts. It just fell apart in the last quarter.quotes:"This was a girl--a woman--who could make or unmake the world however she wanted. It was the most compelling thing I'd ever seen." — p 189"the books were even older, they made me think of the old British army abandoned and left behind still standing in their dusty formations." p. 221 ( )

Scintillating story of identity, conspiracy, and complexity. ( )

When my colleague recommended this book to me she added a word of caution, which I now pass on to you. Beware; this is possibly the weirdest book I have read. I have read many strange books, I revel in books that push the limits, that are different and unique, but this book surpasses them all. It is not just in the narrative either; the book’s format and the pictorial representations are also a thing of wonder.

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall is a thrilling force of imagination gone wild. It begins with Eric Sanderson (not the first) who awakes one morning without any knowledge of who or where he is. There follows a tale about self-preservation and one man’s quest to reclaim a lost identity. Instructions from The First Eric Sanderson arriving like clock work, a mysterious locked room and references to the alluring Clio, a girl he once loved, spur our Eric on to venture outside of his elaborately protected house in a search for his own true self and his past. However, Eric soon realizes that in order to survive he must first find an escape from his allusive predator; a cognitive shark that is swimming up the stream of language and identity to deprive him of his memories, scattered and new born as they are.

In Raw Shark Texts you will never quite know what is going on. You must accept this from the beginning. However, the very mystery, both as experienced by the reader and that of the character’s past, make this a book that you will have trouble putting down.