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Rating: 
Summary: crazy
Review: Great, inventive concept.
Kudos to Nick Walker.
If you have the tendency to read more than 1 book at a time, don't try it with this. It will drive you nuts.
If you multitask a lot, this is one book that can actually keep your mind fully occupied all by itself.
Best read after you see "Memento" "Snatch" "Pulp Fiction" or maybe even "Fight Club"
This book is nuts. -It's the multi-threaded story architecture on Crack. Lots of characters, lots of threads.
It lost me.
I honestly had to chuck this book after pg. 50. Could not stand it.
Perhaps it gets better near the end.
Rating: 
Summary: Confusing but bloody hilarious
Review: I finished this within 3 or 4 days and I've never read a more gripping book in all my life. The " 840 chapters " ( I rather call them moments or minutes really ) are brilliantly laid out since it leaves you wanting to know more. At times you have to put the book down since you can't help but be in hysterics of laughter especially with the simulated suicide from " Unfunny John." All I can say is that you really have to read this book but only if you like your comedy black.
Rating:
Summary: Confusing but bloody hilarious
Review: I finished this within 3 or 4 days and I've never read a more gripping book in all my life. The " 840 chapters " ( I rather call them moments or minutes really ) are brilliantly laid out since it leaves you wanting to know more. At times you have to put the book down since you can't help but be in hysterics of laughter especially with the simulated suicide from " Unfunny John." All I can say is that you really have to read this book but only if you like your comedy black.
Rating:
Summary: Catchy Subtitle - Best Part of the Book
Review: I saw "Blackbox" on the new-books shelf and that caught my attention because I like those kinds of books. What really caught my interest was the subtitle "A Novel in 840 Chapters". Now, that was novel!I quickly skimmed it and read the back cover. Look good enough to buy. I am disappointed, though. The best part of the book might just be the subtitle. I feel a little like Unfunny Johnny, a character in the book. Wishing I had not bothered. Ah, onto others.
Rating:
Summary: Catchy Subtitle - Best Part of the Book
Review: I saw "Blackbox" on the new-books shelf and that caught my attention because I like those kinds of books. What really caught my interest was the subtitle "A Novel in 840 Chapters". Now, that was novel! I quickly skimmed it and read the back cover. Look good enough to buy. I am disappointed, though. The best part of the book might just be the subtitle. I feel a little like Unfunny Johnny, a character in the book. Wishing I had not bothered. Ah, onto others.
Rating: 
Summary: Under the Radar
Review: Now this is craftsmanship. Nick Walker has written a debut novel that reminds me a bit of the device from which it takes its title. A piece of work primed to slip unnoticed into a plethora of similar machinery yet able to survive in the wake of critical disaster (for which BLACKBOX proves quite an easy target). All Palahniuk comparisons aside (Survivor), BLACKBOX withstands its own endless cliches, thin plotlines, and high concept writing. The result is a welcome vacation from an otherwise monotonous literary year. Despite its faults, Walker's creation proves extremely difficult to put down. Conversely, the reader discovers no deeply profound life lessons or tragic true stories of triumph against all odds inside this book. What one WILL find is 840 chapters, 20 different narrators (none of which can truly be labeled a protagonist), 2 suicides (depending on your perspective), at least 10 instances of public vomiting, and ultimately one of the most darkly hilarious novels in recent memory. At the center of it all lies the story of a doomed long distance love affair and the people caught in-between. Walker has spun a wicked web that catches you from the beginning and doesn't let up until the final word. It is a tale of what could have been but (realistically) never is. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Terrific!
Review: The fact that this book has been barely reviewed was shocking. Blackbox will take you on a mind journey you have to read to believe. Not only is this book clever, funny, witty, and insightful, but extremely well written and amazingly creative. This is one novel that you'll be thinking about long after you read it.
Rating:
Summary: six degrees....
Review: Wow!
I've never written a review before but this quirky, odd, meandering novel just begged me to write about it.
Any fan of po-mo fiction (Foster Wallace, DeLillo) will dig this novel.
The book really does have 840 chapters (signifying the 840 previous flights leading up to flight SA841). Each chapter is told in a different narrator's voice and each chapter connects and bisects the other chapters....a six degrees of separation of chapters.
Nick Walker is a very original writer with a great ear for dialogue.
"Blackbox" is a chilling, funny (at times laugh out loud funny) and very disturbing story... a fun read that begs you to ask "is life really just a series of random instances"?
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