S.

Quite the collection of love stories, wrapped in mysteries and including some horrific notes. This was my second time with the book, and this time I read the text first, and then read the marginalia in order. I read the inserts along with the first blue/black set of notes, which, while not an ideal, is a one approach (it means you'll likely read about something before it happens, though it can be difficult to know when to read something and when to let it be). Since it didn't make it through the marginalia on my first read, this time around I really got to know the two margin characters much better and enjoyed their unfolding relationship. The next time I read this, I think I'll start with marginalia and finish with the text of SoT itself. There are so many layers to this book that they'll be lost on me, and I can keep coming back to the well and see what sticks. Enjoy your journey!

This book was a long hard slog for me once I'd lost interest in the printed story itself and the confusing byplay in the margins. That's why it took me two years to read. I got the impression that these were just stories someone was making up as they went along, with repeating images and motifs that really don't mean anything deep but were thrown in to give the impression of a structure. It tries to be a few things at once, an art object with the unusual inserts dropped in, a puzzle story, a pastiche of an old-time thriller, a story where two strangers discover love, but for me it didn't quite deliver on any of these enough to justify the effort in teasing out the overlapping lines.
I also didn't really buy the dynamic of two strangers passing notes in a book - every time they took it out did they just happen to find the appropriate passage a few pages after the point where they left their last note? Or why else aren't the different tracks of comments less sequential than they are?
The inserts were charming at first but I don't think I got a single insight from looking at them. It would be something about someone's story I already didn't care about, or something that didn't make any sense to me. Maybe I'm wrong and there is a tightly conceived master plan bringing all the elements together, but I don't think so.
There were some passages where the writing seemed striking, a couple of story points which approached the really shocking, but in the absence of a compelling narrative thrust these weren't quite enough to hold my interest, I regret to say.