I didn't find this as difficult to read as many other people seem to have, but I did have to read it twice to fully appreciate it. This is mainly because I found certain affectations of style - namely Kiernan's bizarre character names and habit of sandwiching adjectives and descriptive words together - distractingly irritating. The story was compelling enough, however, and I managed to get through and enjoy it. Upon the second reading, I fell in love with it.

It would be easy to label this book "Southern Lovecraft," and have done with it, but that does both Kiernan and the book itself a great disservice. Yes, it is thematically similar to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, but where Lovecraft's vision of horror from the sea comes from unknown worlds and dimensions, Kiernan draws inspiration from the very real, earthly realm of invertebrate paleontology. This tie to actual science makes the slow uncoiling of the story potent, believable, and quite unsettling. Also, while Lovecraft's tales tend to be rather cold and epic, Kiernan takes a similar premise and makes it, for lack of a better word, smaller. It is visceral and fluid, its characters further developed and much more relatable than any found in Lovecraft's work. Kiernan excels at laying dread down in layers. The rhythm of the story almost mimics the creatures she describes - slow, crawling, barely visible at first, but there, subtly increasing in strength until we are plunged into chaos. Particular scenes, (most notably the laboratory scene), are genuinely frightening, but as a result of suspense and suggestion rather than gore.

Threshold is by no means a perfect book. Its languid pace means that there is a lot of exposition to slog through before we get to the heart of what is happening, and that heart is constructed mostly of vagueness and shadow. The end is also vague and so dense that, even after two readings, I'm still not sure that I really understand it. Caveats aside, this is an engrossing, unusual book by a very unique and gifted writer - those facts alone make it well worth the time it takes to get through it. ( )

My Rating

Couldn't Finish It: when this book first came out, the cover nabbed my interest. But I stuck the title on my Amazon.com wishlist and promptly forgot about it. Anytime I browsed through my wishlist for something to read, I always ignored this book for whatever reason.

But I finally got it after there was a call via the internets to support Kiernan's work, I believe due to the fact she was suffering from health issues, and we all know hospital bills pile up, so those making the pleas were encouraging their readers to pick up one of Kiernan's work. Because obviously, the more books Kiernan sells, the more money she makes.

Since I'd had my eye on this title for a while, I didn't mind forking over the cash. And for the most part, I was looking forward to the book.

So why couldn't I finish it? If you turn to the copyright page of the book, you'll find the direction below:

This book is best read aloud. --CRK

Which made me crack up. I appreciate this, I really do. I for one always encourage writers to read their fiction aloud so that they can catch mistakes, and plus, you really learn to hear your own work and understand its rhythms. Plus, I got my bachelors from Hollins University, a school known for its creative writing program, and in those circles, reading your work aloud is A BIG THING.

Prose poetry is cool. Make no mistake. And trust me, as soon as I started reading the first page, I understood Kiernan's direction for the book. This book is best read aloud.

No kidding. I don't know HOW many times I kept having to re-read sentences because of their poetic structure, and while poetic structure in and of itself is not a bad thing by any means (I love Valente's and Winterson's work, for example), I have trouble when the poetry is repeating the same description in different ways, or when the dialogue for multiple characters is in the same paragraph, or when for whatever reason, sentences and dialogues are strung together with the word "and" when a period would have worked just as good, if not better.

But who am I to criticize poetry? Clearly, Kiernan made some very deliberate choices in her punctuation and grammar, and while in the end, I found it unreadable, I'm sure that read aloud, or to certain "ears," this reads as smooth as silk. Only, I don't have those kinds of ears, nor am I willing to read a 308 page book aloud. And let's face it, I didn't have the patience to keep reading (and re-reading, in several cases) just to get through the book. The premise didn't grab me enough, and while the characters seem to be very well drawn, their situations strikingly human, I just couldn't justify the effort of turning these pages. Oh well. I'll pass this sucker along to someone who can appreciate it.

Basic Reason for Beginning: I heard about this book through a book review blog. The reviewer couldn't finish because of the style the story was written in. I was intrigued, found it and ordered it.
Basic Reason for Finishing: It's been a long time since I've read books that feel beyond me which I've been happy to read.
Texture: Uhm... This book comes with a note that says 'best read aloud'. This makes my throat hurt after just a paragraph. Reading it silently, though, just makes me woozy. Only, I didn't notice until I'd finished reading it. It has a very sing-song feel to it.

Full review here.

Rereadability: If I could get this in audiobook format (which you can't; if readers have the same experience I had, they end up with a sore throat after only a paragraph, but then I lack training in reading aloud), I would love to 'reread' this, but otherwise the fact that it made me so woozy will make me very hesitant to reread this, even though I'd love to see what else I'd pick up on.
Recommendation: If the excerpt is utterly unreadable, skip it. If you don't like dark stories, skip it. If you want something light with easy answers to read, skip it. If you're in for a challenge and don't mind the excerpt, go for it. ( )

Lovecraft drenched in southern gothic. ( )

This is a confused and involved story. I don't think I'm quite the audience for this story and really while I found it interesting it didn't really gel with me. I found the way she ran some words together annoying and while it probably makes reading it out loud good it just came across to me as a bit pretentious.

While this looks like a paranormal story it doesn't quite hit those buttons for me. It came across as more a horror/dark thriller story with some elements of supernatural. Chance Matthews is approached by an albino woman who knows about some of the strange things happening to her in the house her parents own. There is a fossil that shouldn't exist and strangnesses happening.

While it appears to be marketed to the urban fantasy fan it's really for more the horror fan and the fan of stuff like Lovecraft. ( )