definitelynotreading's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Fair warning, I'm not giving this one a star rating. It's so unique that I don't know how it falls into a typical rating system.
.
If you've never heard of this book, the concept is that this old man dies and his neighbor's friend finds this old trunk full of a manuscript for a book that's typed, scribbled on scraps, disorganized and all over the place. So this guy, Johnny, decides to organize the manuscript and adds his own footnotes to it. The manuscript is an analysis of a Blair Witch style movie about a house that's bigger on the inside. The catch is- this movie doesn't actually exist. In the process of putting this book together, Johnny goes crazy and you get a front row seat. It's a story with so many layers, insane formatting and it's a wild ride.
.
My friend and I read this together and started the read terrified that it was going to be the scariest thing we've ever read. What actually happened is there were a few spooky chapters (don't get me wrong, reading the end late at night in a basement was not a good plan) but all the built up tension would get lost in long philosophical passages or a footnote describing Johnny's latest depraved escapades at his local club. Don't even get me started on the formatting of chapter 9 😨.
.
I'm ultimately glad that my friend introduced me to this book. Someday I may go back and re-read only the Navidson Record (the part about the house) because those were the relatable characters and the best story. For me, I'm glad I pushed through the insanity, but this is definitely not a book for everyone and were it not for buddy reading, I'm not sure I would've made it through.
.
If you do plan to pick it up, there are definitely some content warnings you should look into, especially towards the end.
.
If you've never heard of this book, the concept is that this old man dies and his neighbor's friend finds this old trunk full of a manuscript for a book that's typed, scribbled on scraps, disorganized and all over the place. So this guy, Johnny, decides to organize the manuscript and adds his own footnotes to it. The manuscript is an analysis of a Blair Witch style movie about a house that's bigger on the inside. The catch is- this movie doesn't actually exist. In the process of putting this book together, Johnny goes crazy and you get a front row seat. It's a story with so many layers, insane formatting and it's a wild ride.
.
My friend and I read this together and started the read terrified that it was going to be the scariest thing we've ever read. What actually happened is there were a few spooky chapters (don't get me wrong, reading the end late at night in a basement was not a good plan) but all the built up tension would get lost in long philosophical passages or a footnote describing Johnny's latest depraved escapades at his local club. Don't even get me started on the formatting of chapter 9 😨.
.
I'm ultimately glad that my friend introduced me to this book. Someday I may go back and re-read only the Navidson Record (the part about the house) because those were the relatable characters and the best story. For me, I'm glad I pushed through the insanity, but this is definitely not a book for everyone and were it not for buddy reading, I'm not sure I would've made it through.
.
If you do plan to pick it up, there are definitely some content warnings you should look into, especially towards the end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Sexual content, Gun violence, and Blood
Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment
danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I liked it! Sometimes I struggled with its rather intentional meandering structure but I appreciated the maze it was laying out and what it was meant to evoke from the reader. I also appreciated the ways in which the book itself felt like a metaphor for the psyche of its dual book within a book authors. I will say, the book is pretty damn misogynistic, so I struggled with that a bit. But overall, it was a fun ride.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Sexual content, Violence, Child abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Rape, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Forced institutionalization, Injury/injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Toxic friendship, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
melliedm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
Boy oh boy oh boy it’s been a while since I read something I despised so deeply. Each page felt wet with masculine hubris as a dreadfully dull and unoriginal tale was told wrapped up in a coat of artistic desperation.
House of Leaves is a stack of papers containing the academic paper an old shut-in wrote about a possibly non-existent documentary film, compiled by a young man who filched the work in progress from the old man’s apartment after he died. And all of that is put together by another editor. The piece is layered, absolutely, but not in an organic way, and not in a compelling way, just in a patience-testing way.
The academic essay goes from recounting the exact moments of the film to pontificating on echoes to recounting the moments on the film in a format that had me mourning the many trees turned to pulp for the thousands of copies of this book. (Single paragraphs, single words, single sentences at “””evocative””” angles, pages dedicated to telling us that what should be on the page is missing.) the essay is dotted with hundreds of footnotes, which are almost all meaningless, and stretch the read time unnecessarily. The essay is not all bad. On occasion there is something interesting raised, or a tension that begins to build… Each time something intriguing begins to happen in this recounting of the documentary, though, in comes the footnote from our other writer.
His name is Johnny Truant and he does drugs and drinks and has a lot of sex—graphic sex, sex written from the perspective of someone who clearly fetishizes women, to the point of fetishizing their skin colour if they happen to not be white. His constant interruptions to the essay are eyeroll inducing because nothing in his sob story is interesting, nothing in it is gripping, nothing in it makes him a character I feel interested in learning more about. I thought perhaps we were supposed to hate him—but then comes in a letter to the editor from an 18 year old girl who knew him talking about how cool he was. Uhhhh, what? So here I am, reading the women he objectifies in his life as the character objectifying them, but this “from the horse’s mouth” moment tells me that nah, you’re reading it wrong. Christ on a stick. This of course culminates in some horrific, gender-based violence later on, which is followed by some strangers wondering if this mysterious Johnny Truant ever got the love he deserves UWU
Gag.
In short, House of Leaves could have been a perfectly fine story about a strange house and the impact it has the relationship between the couple the documentary follows/is made by, which is the only effective throughline in the book for me. Unfortunately, the author or someone in his circle must have thought that wouldn’t be good enough, so he instead became the thing the first few pages try to satirize: a boring, pretentious attempt at making a mountain out of a molehill.
YMMV.
House of Leaves is a stack of papers containing the academic paper an old shut-in wrote about a possibly non-existent documentary film, compiled by a young man who filched the work in progress from the old man’s apartment after he died. And all of that is put together by another editor. The piece is layered, absolutely, but not in an organic way, and not in a compelling way, just in a patience-testing way.
The academic essay goes from recounting the exact moments of the film to pontificating on echoes to recounting the moments on the film in a format that had me mourning the many trees turned to pulp for the thousands of copies of this book. (Single paragraphs, single words, single sentences at “””evocative””” angles, pages dedicated to telling us that what should be on the page is missing.) the essay is dotted with hundreds of footnotes, which are almost all meaningless, and stretch the read time unnecessarily. The essay is not all bad. On occasion there is something interesting raised, or a tension that begins to build… Each time something intriguing begins to happen in this recounting of the documentary, though, in comes the footnote from our other writer.
His name is Johnny Truant and he does drugs and drinks and has a lot of sex—graphic sex, sex written from the perspective of someone who clearly fetishizes women, to the point of fetishizing their skin colour if they happen to not be white. His constant interruptions to the essay are eyeroll inducing because nothing in his sob story is interesting, nothing in it is gripping, nothing in it makes him a character I feel interested in learning more about. I thought perhaps we were supposed to hate him—but then comes in a letter to the editor from an 18 year old girl who knew him talking about how cool he was. Uhhhh, what? So here I am, reading the women he objectifies in his life as the character objectifying them, but this “from the horse’s mouth” moment tells me that nah, you’re reading it wrong. Christ on a stick. This of course culminates in some horrific, gender-based violence later on, which is followed by some strangers wondering if this mysterious Johnny Truant ever got the love he deserves UWU
Gag.
In short, House of Leaves could have been a perfectly fine story about a strange house and the impact it has the relationship between the couple the documentary follows/is made by, which is the only effective throughline in the book for me. Unfortunately, the author or someone in his circle must have thought that wouldn’t be good enough, so he instead became the thing the first few pages try to satirize: a boring, pretentious attempt at making a mountain out of a molehill.
YMMV.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Alcohol, Misogyny, Addiction, Cursing, Suicide, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Animal death, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Panic attacks/disorders, and Rape
rgraham's review against another edition
One of the main characters rapes and kills a woman.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Murder, Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Addiction, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Death, and Child death
stephanieridiculous's review
Despite this being on my book shelf and TBR for literally over 10 years, I'm ditching this after like 130ish pages. The primary story, about The Navidson Record, is absolutely fascinating - truly intriguing and I'm upset that the parallel story about Johnny Truant is so crude and unnecessary.
I knew that there was sexual content in the book, but what starts off fairly mild, or at least brief, escalates into graphic scenes that literally have nothing to do with the plot and actually serve no purpose - other than, I suppose, to demonstrate the MC needs to document his prowess or somesuch garbage.
The presence of sexual violence is also unsettling, including a message that you are forced to decode yourself from a woman in an institution who is trying to get help from her son via a coded note where she tells him she's being raped by staff. Which, at least at 130ish pages, isn't resolved in any kind of satisfying way. It also seems every named woman in the narrative (aside from the daughter of the Navidsons) either exists for a male fantasy and/OR has been the victim of sexual violence.
I was excited for weird, creepy, unsettling, and disturbing insofar as the House went. I am uninterested in what that seems to be wrapped up in.
I knew that there was sexual content in the book, but what starts off fairly mild, or at least brief, escalates into graphic scenes that literally have nothing to do with the plot and actually serve no purpose - other than, I suppose, to demonstrate the MC needs to document his prowess or somesuch garbage.
The presence of sexual violence is also unsettling, including a message that you are forced to decode yourself from a woman in an institution who is trying to get help from her son via a coded note where she tells him she's being raped by staff. Which, at least at 130ish pages, isn't resolved in any kind of satisfying way. It also seems every named woman in the narrative (aside from the daughter of the Navidsons) either exists for a male fantasy and/OR has been the victim of sexual violence.
I was excited for weird, creepy, unsettling, and disturbing insofar as the House went. I am uninterested in what that seems to be wrapped up in.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Sexual violence
reeb's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence
Moderate: Violence, Sexual content, and Drug use
Minor: Cursing
laneport's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual violence, Violence, Body horror, Confinement, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Addiction, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Gun violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Rape
Moderate: Physical abuse
Minor: Cancer, Car accident, and Medical content
addyruth17's review against another edition
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Gun violence, Sexual content, Injury/injury detail, Violence, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Animal death, Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Alcohol, Mental illness, and Child abuse
Minor: Infidelity, Car accident, Sexual violence, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, and Vomit
funmilayo's review
When I first started reading this book I was really excited because I never read anything quite like it. The storyline seemed very complex, mysterious and overall intriguing. The main reason as to why I was so excited to read this book however, was that I had read an abundance of reviews that described this book as one of the scariest stories ever. It wasn't. There were a few parts where the author tried to build up tension and did so quite interestingly (by influencing the reading speed through word placement and the format of certain passages). However, in the end all of these attempts fell completely flat and left you wanting more so that the book would eventually live up to its hype...which it really didn't. In regards to the scariness of the story: the only truly scary part of this book was the absolutely disgusting misogyny. Mark Z. Danielewski absolutely cannot write complex female characters (Imagine Haruki Murakami but make it ten times as misogynistic!). The only "personality trait" these women had was trauma and their entire personality seemingly revolved around the male characters (Johnny in particular). There's this really horrible passage that is litteraly just page after page of Johnny detailing the traumatic experiences of every woman he's ever met in extreme detail. Lots of male authors are into using trauma/abuse of women as a plot device (because a womans pain is apparently the only substantial thing about her) but Danielewski doesn't even use the trauma for the plot...it has absoulutely nothing to do with anything which makes it all the more disturbing. There were a few passages that were somewhat interesting but not enough to redeem the overall theme and style of the story. Johnny is a literal incel and it makes me sick to read about his thoughts and actions and the lack of reflection and discussion of the extremely misogynistic content of this book is incredibly alarming. Obviously I wasn't expecting a feminist manifesto from this book but I also wasn't expecting an incel manifesto so... .
In conclusion: the idea for the story and the interesting concept and layout seemed really promising but fell through completely. I cannot and will not reccomend this book to anybody. There's much better (psychological) horror books and stories out there that are scary without being completely dehumanizing.
In conclusion: the idea for the story and the interesting concept and layout seemed really promising but fell through completely. I cannot and will not reccomend this book to anybody. There's much better (psychological) horror books and stories out there that are scary without being completely dehumanizing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Genocide, Toxic relationship, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Rape, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence
veganecurrywurst's review
0 ⭐
This book just wasn't for me (to quote the beginning)
I wanted to be scared and I was looking forward to all the riddles. But the more I read the less I cared. I just wanted it to be over. It wasn't even the academic style of writing or Johnny (although I sometimes felt that Johnny was only written for a shock factor and to be "edgy", which made me lose interest a bit)
The author is undoubtedly very talented and a lot of work went into this. The weird thing is, that I actually enjoyed some of the discussions about the book on Reddit. Maybe I'll pick this book back up in a year or so.
This book just wasn't for me (to quote the beginning)
I wanted to be scared and I was looking forward to all the riddles. But the more I read the less I cared. I just wanted it to be over. It wasn't even the academic style of writing or Johnny (although I sometimes felt that Johnny was only written for a shock factor and to be "edgy", which made me lose interest a bit)
The author is undoubtedly very talented and a lot of work went into this. The weird thing is, that I actually enjoyed some of the discussions about the book on Reddit. Maybe I'll pick this book back up in a year or so.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Cursing, Death, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders and Alcoholism