Ship of Theseus review

5/5 stars
Recommended for people who like: puzzles, mysteries, annotated books, murder mysteries, dark academia

This is a super interesting book that definitely gives the vibe of one of those murder mystery box games. It tells two stories: one, the ‘book’ story and the other the annotations written by Jen and Eric. The life of the book really comes from the latter of these two stories and takes place over an unidentified timeline, maybe a year, and includes personal writings as Jen and Eric get to know each other and writings as they try to solve the mystery of who V. M. Straka was. Along with the annotations, there are also pamphlets, newspaper clippings, and postcards, among other things, included between the pages of the book.

In the world of this book, V. M. Straka is a well-known writer with an unknown identity. It’s a big mystery in the literary world and there are fans and scholars alike dedicated to figuring out the mystery and finding clues from Straka’s writings. Eric, one of the characters writing annotations, is an ex-grad student who was doing his PhD research on Straka and, specifically, Ship of Theseus. Despite no longer being a student, he’s passionate about his research still and deeply invested in figuring out the mystery. Jen is a newcomer who finds the book when Eric leaves it in the library one night, but she quickly becomes equally invested in figuring out who Straka is, and the two bond over that.

There’s an element of unlikeableness to both characters at times, but I think over the course of the book that works to make them more realistic. They also both exhibit growth over the course of the book, as is clearly seen in their annotations to one another, and I liked seeing how the ‘thems’ differed from their earlier annotations (distinguished most clearly by different colored pens). It’s also interesting to watch them grow closer through their writings, well before they ever meet in person.

Along these same lines, the mystery evolves and grows as they do, and working together Jen and Eric discover things about the Straka mystery that had been uncovered, or relatively little known, until they stumble across it. I have to say, I was very invested in the Straka mystery and loved seeing the little bits of research they included in the margins and the added materials. There’s also a code that runs through the footnotes, which was also cool, though I’m thankful Jen writes out what it says, lol. That being said, the Jen/Eric storyline is a little disjointed later on simply because they start meeting in person and not everything they discover needs to be written in the book. It’s still relatively easy to follow what’s going on though and I don’t think it detracted from my enjoyment of the book.

The other story, the one Straka wrote, focuses on identity and radicalism and the anonymous helpers vs. the agent in the spotlight, all wrapped up in a neat literary bow. And it is very literary. Straka’s book reads like something you might read in a class on literary analysis and is quite loaded with symbolism (again, Eric and Jen come in clutch here and helpfully point out a lot of that symbolism). That literary style isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I was pleasantly surprised to find I was invested in S.’s story (S. being the main character of Straka’s book). Like with Jen and Eric, there were times I didn’t like S., but overall I found him to be an interesting character and he certainly saw and did a lot of interesting things.

When I finished this book I immediately got the sense that I wanted to start over from the beginning and read the annotations chronologically rather than page by page like I did the first time. I think it’ll help me piece together certain things on the second go around and pick up on stuff that I didn’t initially. This book definitely gives off the feel that subsequent rereads will allow you to pick up on stuff and figure out some of the mysteries in a way you couldn’t the first time simply because it was all new to you. That being said, I feel like I got a full experience with the first read, where I read each page and annotations regardless of chronology, and I recommend doing it that way for your first read since it definitely amps up the suspense as you go “wait, why did Jen/Eric just write that? What’s going on???”

Overall I would say this book is the bookish version of a murder mystery or escape room game. It’s got a base story, Straka’s ‘book,’ and then it’s got Jen and Eric’s annotations and added materials, all adding up to a very layered story with mystery, suspense, and puzzles on all sides. This was definitely one of my most exciting reads of 2022 and very well may be my favorite.