Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

17 reviews

greevianguy's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Rape, and Suicide

Minor: Ableism

hedsek's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

So many thoughts, so little energy. Maybe I'll return here at some point.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Cancer, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Excrement, Vomit, Cannibalism, and Car accident

mybookishdelights's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was a T R I P! It was hard to get through and I kept wondering "will it ever end??" but the experience is something I will never forget. I will likely even reread it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Cursing, Death, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism and Addiction

nerdkitten's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child death, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism, Fatphobia, Genocide, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Vomit, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, and War

ivana's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

The reading experience of this was like nothing I've ever read and probably will ever read again. I loved how it mirrored what was happening in the story. I actually enjoyed Johnny's footnotes and the rambling nonsensical tone a lot more than most seem to have and I had a harder time with the pretentious fake analytical tangents from The Navidson Record

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, and Colonisation

Minor: Cancer, Infidelity, and Rape

cryptix's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is one of those books where I'm glad it exists to inspire other works that I've enjoyed, but I can't say I'm into it on its own merits.

The central plot, the Navidson Record, is great. I love the formatting tricks, the recursive footnotes, the use of empty space to mimic agoraphobia/claustrophobia and to increase the tension. The prose gets a little florid or overly technical at times but it serves its purpose, I think, as a deep analysis of a (fictional) source material. The ending is perhaps weak but a lot of horror struggles with the ending so I give that a pass.

The framing device of Johnny Truant, however, I could do without. I dislike him as a character, I dislike the gritty traumaporn he brings to the table, and I just find his sections to be tedious interruptions of the story I'm actually here for. Given he's the POV for a good half of the book, I have a hard time fully enjoying the result.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Sexual content, Violence, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Ableism, Rape, and Sexism

chasingpages1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Ableism and Animal death

mobymaize's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book is very important. Reading it, at times, is very much a challenge. I had fun with it, despite taking me nearly 5 months to read. Take into advice the first line of House of Leaves: This is not for you, but the novel is also very interesting, so you might want to read it. Be prepared to flip your book upside down, and to be interrupted in the middle of a description of abyssal hallways leading on for infinity with a (NSFW)

very explicit scene where a main character gets a finger up his butt and cums from it

. Great & wild book, will never read again /pos.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Lesbophobia

bearystarry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I was expecting this to be the scariest book I'd ever read, and maybe actually fear doesn't translate well for me through books, but this was much more... sad to me than anything else. I only had creepy feelings a couple of times, but really the main takeaway I had from this book was emotional devastation. (Though that may be due to my personal circumstances currently as well.)

An extremely compelling if difficult read, anyway. And difficult to track your pages read through an app like this lol.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Infidelity, Suicide, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Cancer, Death, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, and Death of parent

canopicfemme's review against another edition

2.25

this was a massive disappointment. one of those books where style takes precedent over the quality of the content. don’t get me wrong, it was a unique reading experience and I enjoyed reading a book that was formatted in a way that i’ve never seen before. however the actual story left much to be desired. i would’ve dnfed this book 20% in if the format wasn’t so interesting. despite being a horror book that’s been praised for being terrifying, i never felt anything other than a mild shiver bc anything that had the potential to be unnerving was overshadowed by the amount of unnecessary content.
 
the part’s about the navidson record we’re interesting at times, tho usually it was dull. Johnny’s segments were even worse. at best they were rambles that while connected to the navidson record stuff, were too long and branched off into random stories from his past. at worst the johnny segments were long, barely coherent ramblings that were not connected to anything. 

this book does not need to be this long, there is so much unnecessary shit that should’ve been cut out. most of johnny’s ramblings, whatever the hell those pelican poems were, the random quotes at the end of the book (+ more) were unnecessary. the r slur is thrown in for some reason as well as ableist and racist remarks. 

THE FUCKING MISOGYNY IN THIS BOOK. pretty much all the women are sexy, naive but intelligent, have basically the same personality, and johnny want’s to sleep with pretty much all of them and so the reader is subjected to multiple paragraphs of johnny just fantasising of sleeping with all these women and it’s like ????? what the fuck??? not a single well rounded woman in this book, ever single one of the women revolve entirely around their relationship to a man. 
there’s also the use of rape as just a tragic backstory mentioned in a one off line for about 1/4 of the women in this book, not to mention the part where johnny fantasies about raping a woman. 
there’s also the descriptions of unnecessarily gruesome animal death. 

how this book has such a cult following is beyond me. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse and Drug abuse

Minor: Ableism, Cancer, and Racism