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i did like the doll's house. reading everyone's posts it seems like i wasn't quite the fan that some of you were, but i am usually quite the critic of books (among other things) so what did i think? i'm somewhat surprised by how disturbed so many people seem to have been by the novel. i did feel like it pushed on some boundaries, but i felt like every time it started to push, it would stop just short of really pushing it. i'm not talking about just a gore type disturbance factor, which i assume is the visceral reactions we talked about, but also in pushing those philosophical type issues - the things that 'would drive you mad if you thought about them too long' (to paraphrase rose). i always felt like we were taken just to the cusp of something that would really mess with our minds, but then something else would happen. and though i know that the whole waking from a dream style is integral to the novel, i sometimes couldn't help feeling cheated. and i didn't feel cheated like i should figure it out on my own, i just felt (and i may just be cynical) that the author just couldn't take it to the next step. and i didn't always know what the next step should be, but i wanted him to take more of a stance on certain things, say it IS this way, now what are you going to do about it? even the disturbing images/scenes that so many have talked about, maybe i'm just (ready for the cliche?) jaded by culture, but i honestly wasn't that disturbed. i often expected to turn the page and for it to be worse, something that would really bother me, but it never came. personally i found the cereal convention stuff sort of hokey. i guess that was kind of the point though- once morpheus came and disbanded them and told them how basically lame they all were, playing bad guys. all that being said, i did feel compelled to finish it, and did want to know where everything was going, so as far as books for academia, i enjoyed reading it more than your average text book.