This review will likely contain spoilers



So there I am reading Volume 3 of The Familiar, having so far fairly enjoyed the story being told. I spent the 600 or so pages up to this point reading about how the cat doesn't have a name yet and how Xanther keeps attempting to find one, and being so close to the end, I decided I would go ahead and purchase Volume 4. I go onto Amazon and see Volume 4 is on sale, and I buy it. Out of curiosity, I checked out Volume 5 to see if it too was on sale. I learne

This review will likely contain spoilers



So there I am reading Volume 3 of The Familiar, having so far fairly enjoyed the story being told. I spent the 600 or so pages up to this point reading about how the cat doesn't have a name yet and how Xanther keeps attempting to find one, and being so close to the end, I decided I would go ahead and purchase Volume 4. I go onto Amazon and see Volume 4 is on sale, and I buy it. Out of curiosity, I checked out Volume 5 to see if it too was on sale. I learned something then.



Each Volume has a short description about the cat. Volume 1: Where the cat is found. Volume 2: Where the cat is hungry. I remember reading, when I first found this series, that one of those descriptions was Where the cat is named. Seeing has how this entire Volume was focused on that (in regards to the cat), I assumed it would be this one.



Nope.



Volume 3 is Where the cat is blind. Volume 4 is Where the cat is toothless, and it's only Volume 5 where it will finally be named! All this to say, WHY DID WE SPEND THE ENTIRE VOLUME READING ABOUT XANTHER TRYING TO NAME IT, IF IT WON'T GET IT'S NAME FOR 2 MORE VOLUMES?



Blind? I must be the blind one because I don't see how that description fits this Volume at all. Is it because it supposedly knocked over that thing Astair loved so much? Even in the final chapter, Xanther is still asking about names for her cat.



There I was, about 3 chapters away from the end, and suddenly I realize, once again, not much will actually happen in this Volume.



But I need to take a step back. Spoilers for the end of Volume 2, but if you're reading this, you've hopefully already read Volume 2. At the end of Volume 2, it's heavily implied Xanther walks out of her home in the night and is hit by a car. Danielewski even includes several pages alternating between total black and blood spatters. All done to intentionally make the reader believe Xanther was hit by the car, and hopefully make the reader buy and read the next volume. That's not what happens though. It's all fake.



I rushed into reading this volume to see how the main character survived. Then, this Volume starts by completely ignoring the end of Volume 2. Almost to a frustrating degree. Xanther is perfectly fine. It's all later, only a few chapters in admittedly, we learn she was never hit by a car. Instead, the car stopped in time and avoided her. Which, to me, retroactively makes Volume 2 worse than it already was. Not only did it have no story to tell. Not only was it way too focused on Astair, and way too focused on Lutero's sexual urges, but now it also ends on what is the literal equivalent of clickbait?



Thankfully, though, Volume 3 is actually pretty decent. Not as good as Volume 1, but definitely better than 2. It has some problems I'll go into, but for the most part, it's okay. Unlike Volume 2 which felt like a 300 page story told over 800, Volume 3's length isn't really felt through most of the story.



Most of the perspectives we see actually have something take place. The most interesting, to me, still being Xanther's and Cas' with the orb. In fact, the entire story line following the Orb is easily my favorite to read, partly because it's interesting, and partly because it actually moves along and things are happening. The small downside is, their progression for this Volume can be summed up entirely by saying 'They agree to meet their rival'. In all 841 pages, that's it.



Xanther, and in turn her parents, do actually have a more interesting story this time around than Volume 2. Here to say, they actually have one. The progression of seeing Xanther wrongfully being accused for something she didn't do, being punished for it, the truth coming out and her mom attempting to make up for it, is actually not that bad. There were points in the middle of the book where it seemed we were getting the same thing over and over again. Her parents wondering why Xanther would do it, or why she wasn't saying anything, and Xanther wondering why her sister's ratted her out and why she wouldn't speak up. It does move along though, and as I said, we see her mom attempt to fix it.



As for the other 5 story lines, eh. Like I said, thankfully we weren't reading page after page after page of Lutero having sex in some hotel. I skipped JingJing's chapters, I still can't read those. Shnork drove a lot and got a lucky cat ornament. Can't really say I remember what happened with Ozgur or The Mayor. (For the record, I finished this book the night before posting this.)



Overall, actually reading through this book wasn't as much of a slog as it was to read Volume 2. Like most books, it had its boring moments, or its slow moments, but generally it seemed focused and knew the story it wanted to tell.



So what didn't I like? Not that much. Overall, this Volume was okay. Not too bad, not too good. Just okay. There were still some issues I had.



I don't understand Danielewski's obsession with making Astair's chapters so long. Every one of her chapters is around 40 pages or so. Almost none of them need to be. In fact, none of them need tobe. The stories being told in those chapters are the ones that drag and drag, and so much is being said, but not much is happening. Add onto that her gimmick of the parentheses within parentheses, and those chapters become a chore to read. Every time I've put this series down, it was always on her chapters.



The second to last chapter in the book is an Astair chapter, and it honestly feels like Danielewski saw he only had 2 more chapters to write, but had 100 pages to go to reach 880, and so he just dragged it out. (Literally, the last two chapters are 40ish and 60ish pages respectively.) At least we didn't spend half a chapter seeing how she touched herself in the shower.



My biggest problem with this Volume is what I mentioned at the start. This series is called The Familiar. The Familiar is the cat. The cat is the focus of this entire series. Though there is focus on it, we continue to barely spend time with it, and so far, nothing has really changed. The cat from volume 1 to the cat from volume 3 is the same. But it's just a cat! No. It's the very thing this entire series is named after. Because of the amount of focus put on it, one would expect more.



Instead, we spend the entire book watching Xanther try to come up with a name for it, literally listing off hundreds throughout the book, almost every chapter with Xanther being about names for the cat, and in the end, it was all entirely pointless. It's a lot of buildup and buildup and buildup, that leads no where. Sure, it will in two volumes, but I'm not reading volume 5 right now. I'm reading volume 3.



When this volume is done, when one reaches page 841, that story line is left completely unresolved. Of course, because there are more volumes, but it left a taste of dissatisfaction in my mouth. The book doesn't end. It kinda just stops. Xanther goes with her mom to this zoo essentially, like what happened in the school in Volume 2 and at the kennel, Xanther somehow opens all the cages and accidentally releases a tiger. Xanther tells the tiger to run, and the book stops.



This is why I talked about the ending to volume 2. Knowing how that book ended, and the way volume 3 started, I'm not invested in where this will go, or what it could mean. I know, it won't. I know there is a really good chance Volume 4 will start with something completely different to this and then maybe later we'll learn more about what happened.



I'm going to finish this series, but I'm not surprised at all that only 5 volumes were published. This isn't a series deserving of 27 volumes. It doesn't have enough going on for that. Had Danielewski set out to just write the stories, and tell what needed to be told, and not to fit it all into 880 pages, it might have been a lot better. SO MUCH of the filler would definitely be cut out. We'll see what happens in the next one.