Sliver
by Ira Levin
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Kay Norris, a successful single woman of thirty-nine, moves into the posh Carnegie Hill district of Manhattan's Upper East Side, into an apartment in a slender high rise, a "sliver" building. A man watches her. He watches her unpack, watches her make her bed. He owns the building; a shocking secret is concealed within its brick and concrete. Sliver is a hypnotic story of obsession, suspense, and stunning surprises. It is a novel about ultimate power, and the temptations the use of that power show more brings. With ice cold precision, Levin, the author of Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives, creates a mesmerizing story that culminates in a scene of electrifying suspense. show lessTags
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First line
~ It was a good Monday morning to begin with - the Hoffmans slugging it out again, Dr. Palme on the phone with a suicidal ex-patient, the Coles' maid getting it off with one of their vibrators, Lesley and Phil meeting in the laundry room - and then it got even better~
I just finished [Sliver] by Ira Levin in three days. At 190 pages this was a fast read!
I found this novel totally gripping!
I appreciated Levin’s sparse prose, the way the words kept the action moving rapidly forward without sacrificing character development. Definitely creepy and I could not put it down.
For 185 pages I was mesmerized. Everything seemed to me to be totally believable and then something happened 5 pages from the end that almost ruined the whole show more book for me. It just left the realm of plausibility and entered the realm of complete unbelievabllity.
However, I have decided that the suspense of those first 185 pages was well worth the read and am giving this a 4.5 star rating since, honestly, I could hardly put it down.
The ending keeps it from getting a 5.0 as one of my all time favourites, although it is certainly close.
4.5 stars show less
~ It was a good Monday morning to begin with - the Hoffmans slugging it out again, Dr. Palme on the phone with a suicidal ex-patient, the Coles' maid getting it off with one of their vibrators, Lesley and Phil meeting in the laundry room - and then it got even better~
I just finished [Sliver] by Ira Levin in three days. At 190 pages this was a fast read!
I found this novel totally gripping!
I appreciated Levin’s sparse prose, the way the words kept the action moving rapidly forward without sacrificing character development. Definitely creepy and I could not put it down.
For 185 pages I was mesmerized. Everything seemed to me to be totally believable and then something happened 5 pages from the end that almost ruined the whole show more book for me. It just left the realm of plausibility and entered the realm of complete unbelievabllity.
However, I have decided that the suspense of those first 185 pages was well worth the read and am giving this a 4.5 star rating since, honestly, I could hardly put it down.
The ending keeps it from getting a 5.0 as one of my all time favourites, although it is certainly close.
4.5 stars show less
It took me a little while to get into the writing style. There are a lot of sentence fragments. Actually, nearly the entire book is written in sentence fragments. At first I thought it was just bad writing, but it really adds to the tension in the book. The entire book is about being watched, and when you're watching someone you don't think in full sentences. Once I got into it, I really liked it. Left me feeling uncomfortable and on edge.
Kay Norris, a successful single lady of thirty-nine, moves into the posh Upper East Side district of Carnegie Hill in Manhattan. The building she moves into is a slender, silvery high rise full of exclusive apartments. The building's landlord is personable, if slightly obsessive, but very solicitous of his tenants' various comforts. Only after she moves in does Kay discover that the tabloids have nicknamed her building "The Horror High Rise". Four unexplained deaths have occurred during the building's construction, and a fifth one is about to happen...
I really enjoyed reading Silver by Ira Levin. It was a very intriguing story and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes horror. I think that I saw at least part of the show more movie that was made in 1993, and starred Sharon Stone and William Baldwin. In my opinion, the book was much better than the movie. I give Sliver by Ira Levin an A+! show less
I really enjoyed reading Silver by Ira Levin. It was a very intriguing story and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes horror. I think that I saw at least part of the show more movie that was made in 1993, and starred Sharon Stone and William Baldwin. In my opinion, the book was much better than the movie. I give Sliver by Ira Levin an A+! show less
There really was nothing much to learn from this book. A light read, in-between, nothing really special. It was creepy to realize that someone is watching another, but for me that was all there was to it. I saw the movie too, I believe. And that says enough I think....
Pretty sinister and chilling but nothing spectacular.
[ 1st ed. at goodwill ]
props for the voyeuristic component, but other than that the prose is lacking.
props for the voyeuristic component, but other than that the prose is lacking.
One word: hot
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43+ Works 16,308 Members
Ira levin was born on August 27, 1929 in the Bronx, New York. He is best remembered for his novels which were made into feature films, Rosemary's Baby (1968, with Mia Farrow), The Boys from Brazil (1978) and The Stepford Wives (1975 and 2004). Levin's best-known play is Deathtrap, which holds the record as the longest-running comedy-thriller on show more Broadway. (It was also made into a feature film in 1982, starring Christpher Reeve.) His first novel, A Kiss Before Dying, earned him the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Ira Levin died in Manhattan from a heart attack on November 12, 2007. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Goldmann (41159)
Zwarte Beertjes (2532)
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Sliver
- Original title
- Sliver
- Original publication date
- 1991-03
- People/Characters*
- Kay Norris; Pete Henderson; Sam Yale; Jack Mulligan; Hubert Sheer; Martin Sugarman (show all 7); Vida Travisano
- Important places*
- New York, New York, USA
- Related movies
- Sliver (1993 | IMDb)
- Dedication
- To Dorothy Olding
- First words
- It was a good Monday morning to begin with - the Hoffmans slugging it out again, Dr. Palme on the phone with a suicidal ex-patient, the Coles' maid getting it off with one of their vibrators, Lesley and Phil meeting in the la... (show all)undry room - and then it got even better.
- Quotations
- She cut paths through branching metaphors, chopped away vines of adverbial clauses, changed profusions of viridescent foliation into masses of green leaves.
“There’s a camera up between the floors, and a glass thread coming down through the stem of the light. It’s stuff the CIA & the FBI use. Takai, Japanese, the best in the world. A whole system.” - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"I wouldn't mind taking one little peek," he said, going out after her.
- Blurbers
- Stephen King
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Members
- 832
- Popularity
- 32,952
- Reviews
- 15
- Rating
- (3.01)
- Languages
- 13 — Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 56
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 18
