Rating: 
Summary: Very Cool!
Review: Caitlin Kiernan spins a fascinating and original tale. SILK is surprising in so many ways, from its choice of settings to Kiernan's strength as a first-time novelist. She shows an incredibly subtle and unerring hand with a task that so many other writers have bungled, creating a contemporary, urban fantasy story populated by members of such marginalized subcultures as goth, punk, and the gay/lesbian community. Her characters are strikingly three-dimensional, real people, and she has a knack for getting the reader to care about them. This is an incredibly dark, haunting, and, at times, frightening story of insanity and the supernatural, but it would be misleading to label it horror (which the publisher, wisely, hasn't done). SILK is in a class by itself and will appeal to readers looking for an escape from mundane, safe, and predictable cookie-cutter fiction!
Rating:
Summary: Kiernan is a brilliant newcomer!
Review: Though on opposite sides of the spectrum in philosophy, music, and sexual orientation, Daria and Spyder share in common that they are two of society's rejects. The suits look down upon this urban riff raff. Daria belongs to the musical group, Stiff Kitten. Her driving ambition is to be on top of the musical world. Spyder wants to survive in the real world as opposed to her frequent trips into a surreal arcane environment. A runaway, Niki, turns into the catalyst that brings Daria and Spyder together, though working against each other to keep her safe. They fight to save Niki's soul from dark forces that might only be the result of Spyder's imagination. However, since an arcane ritual was performed in the basement of Spyder's weird home, a number of eerie things have occurred. No one is even certain if the demons they see are real or hallucinations. Caitlin R. Kiernan's writings seem to be a successful blending of that by Poppy Z. Brite and Dean Koontz, two writers who seem as far apart as the two protagonists of this novel. Still, SILK will appeal to audiences of both authors. The novel includes horror elements that are supernatural and man-made. Ms. Kiernan has a definite future as a writer, whether it be a cult favorite, the mistress of horror, or some hybrid between both poles.
Rating:
Summary: Read it!
Review: This book is wonderful. I've read it a few times now and I still find myself attached to many of the characters, wondering what will become of them (lucky we will be able to find out when Kiernan's new book "Murder of Angels," a sequel to "Silk," comes out in a few months). The language is painfully beautiful, though sometimes difficult, which may be what some of the negative reviews are about (i.e. the people who "just didn't get it"). Kiernan has an extraordinarily talent way with words, but if you don't have the vocabulary to cut it, thats not her fault! It is difficult for me to put this book into a specific category or to give a concise synopsis of the plot, due to its many shifts and complexities. Just pick it up and give it a read! If you like intelligent, emotional fiction you won't regret it. (I'm getting ready to read it again for the third or fourth time.)
Rating: 
Summary: What's all the fuss?
Review: I really don't understand what all the fuss is about. While there were definitely some well written passages in the book, but I found the oddball literary style and freakish sentence structure to be tedious and distracting. I struggled just to reach the end of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Silk...
Review: Kiernan surpasses Brite in bringing her characters to life! All were well fleshed out, and they felt like 'real' people in an unreal situation. The descriptions of characters feelings, the world inside their heads that made them who they were was amazing... I couldn't put this one down!
Rating: 
Summary: Poetry of the night
Review: This book is the most poetic horror novel I've read in a long time ... maybe ever. Poppy Z. Brite compared it to a gothic cathedral on fire, and that's really an accurate description. Here we have a book which is dripping atmosphere. While this can annoy some readers - who prefer a fast-moving plot to a well-developed one - I think it's their loss. Kiernan's command of language is truly amazing. If you tried to simply retell the plot of this novel you'd get a rather simple story, and not much scary, too. But the author takes some elements you've read before a hundred times and somehow transforms them into vivid memorable images. The horror genre was explored by so many authors, that it's hard to find a truly original novel. But "Silk" clearly demonstrates, that if you take good characters and write about them with passion and grace, you can get fantastic results. Also it helps if the writer can substitute phrases like "spiders covered her", for "she was covered with thousands tiny lives, scratching with a billion legs" - do you feel the difference?
Rating:
Summary: Silk
Review: Mysterious monsters harass Goth kids in this first novel from the prominent New Horror writer. For me, the shiny sentence-level writing is the strongest point of this book. The plot, which uses the time-honored horror element "something happened that was so horrible we can get hints of it only in flashbacks", makes reasonably good sense and incorporates some interesting ideas, though the existence of too many characters means that they shift disconcertingly in importance. Generally, the mood is successfully dark, and the horrific ideas are original, though I didn't find the story especially scary. The characters, however, are a weakness in my opinion: they're losers, people who actually care about the difference between deathrock and Goth, kids who have no apparent interests, goals or dreams beyond drugs, casual affairs and garage bands. I'd say that -- without using the criterion of literal age -- there are no adults in this book. I had a hard time sympathizing with these pathetic, soullessly conformist waifs.
Rating:
Summary: Slow-moving gothic horror
Review: Traditional horror readers might be disappointed by Silk. The poetic descriptions are subtle, unwrapping too slowly to create enough thrill or tension. I was also distracted by the odd lilt of Keirnan's writing style. Her metaphors are strangely worded, and feel somewhat forced to me. The subject matter is much like Poppy Z. Brite. Goths will love the similar references to their subculture's music and attitudes. But Brite's writing is sharper and more natural. I'd recommend Silk to goth fiction fans only.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed in the end
Review: Overall this was a good read but the ending did not live up to the rest of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Smart and Spooky
Review: I loved this novel. Caitlin Kiernan's writing is rich and rewarding, and she knows how to tell a good story. This isn't hack and slash horror, all gore and campy campfire cliches. Kiernan uses the English language to weave a darkly fantastic tale of insanity and mystery, set not in some moldering castle, but in the early '90s post-punk scene. This is a genuine ghost story, and compares with Stephen King's The Shining, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. It's not a book of clear resolutions and easy answers. The narrative and characters are complex and expects the reader to think. Five stars for Kiernan!
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