This is a story of two sixteen year olds and their whirlwind journey together, all told in strange unstructured verse. The concept of the book - that everything that happens once will happen again, though possibly with a twist - was an intriguing one, especially in consideration with Sam, the male, being tied to animals while Hailey, the female, only refers to plants. It just would have been a little more effective had it not been so long.

This book took forever for me to read. It was an interesting story and the actual writing was often quite beautiful, but there was nothing about it that made me unable to put the book down. I was more interested in the process of how it was written than necessarily how it was going to end. The planning it must have took to have so many parallels, not just in the corresponding page of the opposing story, but also in the other half of the story on the same page. Similar language, story structure, or in some cases, the complete opposite. It's a very compelling piece of work to analyze, though I don't know if I would ever sit down and re-read.

The side notes were unnecessary, only enforcing the constant stream of wars and destruction the human race manages on its own. I was glad when the timeline in Hailey's story went past the current date and the lines were missing. The timelines just took me out of the story, but I still felt compelled to read them since they were there.

This would be a great book to write papers about, though probably not something for anyone not looking for a challenge. ( )

Danielewski has amazing form but the content still sucks. If only he could get someone else to actually write the stuff for him, it'd be great, though this was a big improvement over HoL. I'll still take a book that really goes all out and defines its style (even going too far at points...some of the puns and strange spellings were annoying as fuck. I just do not like seeing "fear" spelled "feer" and "alone" as "allone".)How I Read This Book:I gave up on the sidebar chronologies immediately and read 8 pages Sam/8 pages Hailey, flipping the book every chapter, figuring that I should start from the male side and go to the female, from myself to my desired. I had to expand out to reading 2 chapter sets sort of cross-hatched together--38H & 39H, 39S & 40S, 40H, 41H etc...--because that pacing was so much better, not having to flip the book so frequently (8 pages is a really short chapter length with such scarce text on each page). I then went back after I finished and skimmed through the sidebar chronologies, and they're actually pretty enjoyable if you do just skim them over and not read each word (which is hopelessly dull).The fact that it was 360 pages and 180 eighty syllables per page (360 per open-face book) was utterly inconsequential, though I do like the idea of reading certain parts circularly in the open-face book, like at the very beginning or end when the story is really at its best (in the middle it's at its worst). ( )

Only Revolutions, like Danielewski's other works, isn't just a book - it's a work of art. OK, I guess all books could be considered works of art since there's an art to writing (some books would be fine art, others would be....eh...much, much less than fine...) Anyway, Only Revolutions is fine art. 360 pages, 360 words to a page, each character has 180 words to a page (I think...it's been a bit since I read). One character starts the story from the future, the other from the past. The book is to be flipped over every eight pages to read the other character's chapter. At the center of the book, they're in the same time, before they head off again in different directions. Really such an interesting book. ( )

There is clearly a relationship between, "Ulysess" & "Finegann's wake", & "House of Leaves" (HOL) & "Only Revolutions". Ulysess & HOL are both experimental but readable in the normal way, with a narrative arc pulling you through the difficult bits. The wake & OR go futher. Its tempting to review OR in comparison the wake as they have many things in common but I'll try not to.

OR is the story(stories) of a love affair that races through history in a variety of fast cars, across america.
Sam is 16, he loves Hailey also 16. Sam's version of the story starts at one end of the book and Hailey's the other. The recommended way of reading is to read 8 pages of 1 then flip the book & read 8 pages the other way, these 8 page chapters(or maybe verses) are handily marked with a Drop capital, oh yes those letters spell something out. Which brings us neatly to the typography, running down the gutter of each page is a timeline usually focussing on deaths interspersed with fragments of quotes, which may or maynot be pertinent to the story which has scattered through it odd changes in type & colour & occasional corner markings. There is also a 180-360 theme an a very neat effect if you zip through the pages flickbook fashion.

All this makes OR a challenging read (physically if nothing else) and challenging to review. It's difficult to get started with the story as its mostly free verse (though one reviewer likens it to rap) and the immediate hook is missing, suddenly something clicks and a tale makes itself known.

OR is difficult to review, I'm unsure how I feel about it, knowing I haven't got everything out of it, beyond a couple of glosses and the most basic of storylines. I deliberately stayed away from review and spoiler sites wanting to experience it uncoloured. Now its finished I think I'll take a break, read something more straight forward and then dive in another time. ( )

What a major dissappointment! After HOL, I couldn't wait for this. I bought it (silly me) without even bothering to open it up and scan a few pages, figuring it had to be good based on how good its fabulous predecessor was. What a waste of money! I'm all for experimentation...but this is simply experimentation for experimentations sake...so who cares? Not me. I wasn't around back when Finnegans Wake came out, but I've got to imagine that Joyce fans back then, who had waited nearly 20 years for the follow up to "Ulysses", must have experienced a similar dissappointment , only worse, when they realized after a few pages into FW that not only was it not anything like "Ulysses," but that it was completely meaningless.

I think it's fair to criticize me for comparing OR to HOL, rather than judging OR on its own terms, and coming to the text of OR with an open mind. I tried to. Believe me, I tried and tried. I read the first (or was it the last--or both?) 20 or so pages of OR again and again, trying to decode or decipher the text, but ultimately had to conclude that it was just bad prose poetry...gibberish, a pseudo-literary bowel movement a la Finnegans Wake, only, in ORs defense, a bit more readable. Can Danielewski maybe get away from being gimmicky and showing off how "creative" he can be and get back to writing fiction that doesn't sacrifice story for technique? Is that too much to ask from an obviously gifted writer? ( )