Goblin reviewed Subcutanean by Aaron A. Reed
Insecure college senior Orion loves music, books, and his best friend Niko. When the two …
no two copies are the same
4 stars
I was intrigued to hear of this novel where every printed copy is a unique variation. Would the flow of the novel suffer? Would the seams show? Would it feel contrived? Is it just gimmick?
I'm happy to report that the experiment turned out very well, at least in my copy generated from seed #44346. If I had read the novel with no context I wouldn't have guessed it was assembled from text variations.
It's a horror novel, creepy not gory. Well maybe some variations get gory, I don't know. (hmm, this is hard to review)
It's also gay coming of age story. The narrator is a gay college student in the 1990s, with an unrequited crush on his best friend. He eventually works through that... after a series of horrifying events. I think it's likely that element exists in all versions of the book.
And the uniqueness of …
I was intrigued to hear of this novel where every printed copy is a unique variation. Would the flow of the novel suffer? Would the seams show? Would it feel contrived? Is it just gimmick?
I'm happy to report that the experiment turned out very well, at least in my copy generated from seed #44346. If I had read the novel with no context I wouldn't have guessed it was assembled from text variations.
It's a horror novel, creepy not gory. Well maybe some variations get gory, I don't know. (hmm, this is hard to review)
It's also gay coming of age story. The narrator is a gay college student in the 1990s, with an unrequited crush on his best friend. He eventually works through that... after a series of horrifying events. I think it's likely that element exists in all versions of the book.
And the uniqueness of every book copy? Not a gimmick. It ties into the story the author wanted to tell. Aaron Reed did a magnificent job. I'll probably read another version of the book some day.