Reviews tagging 'Death'

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

122 reviews

cams's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

This review is going all over the place, just like the book itself. Anyway.

Ever since I've heard about this book, I've wanted to read it. And I did. And I am baffled by magical and surreal this book is. The author is an utter genius who can bring the reader with him in his characters' worst phobias and psychosis and most humanly behaviour. However, I was kind of disappointed with the ending of the book itself, the ending of the Navidson Record. I was way more interested in the annexes of the book where we discover more abt what happened to the Ash tree Lane House and about Johnny, the man who re-writes the whole Navidson Record after his predecesso  died while doing it. 
We actually follow two storyline: The Navidson Record and what happens in that hellish house, how it moves, adapts to its owners' psychology, how deadly it is. 
The 2nd storyline is Johnny Errand's journey to finish what Zampanò did not : transcribing the Navidson Record files. We also follow him through his life while he slowly descends into pure and utterly madness. The latter due to him finishing writing the Navidson Record. 
Both storyline are crafted like diamonds, the reader is driven into the story and the reader doesn't even realise it until it's too late. 

The book will leave you overthinking every details of it. It will creep on you when you don't even think of it. 
This book is beautifully crafted. It is a little diamond. Truly. Most atypical read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide

mathewsc23's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death of parent, Death, Mental illness, Drug use, and Genocide

booksaregodly's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Gore, Mental illness, Cursing, Death, Vomit, Violence, Confinement, Medical trauma, and Suicide

Moderate: Grief, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Gun violence, Alcoholism, and Alcohol

Minor: Death of parent

bealittlebrave's review

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Confinement, Mental illness, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Addiction, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gun violence

Moderate: Grief, Death, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, and Gun violence

carrionkid's review against another edition

5.0

Unlike nothing I've ever read before, though I definitely think I need a reread or two to fully glean all the layers to it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Death, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Animal death

apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Drug use, Death, and Sexual content

Moderate: Child abuse, Blood, Drug abuse, and Rape

Minor: Vomit, Medical content, and Cancer

ghromidko's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, and Mental illness

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.

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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

stefo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

 
̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to write a review on such a detailed and maximalist work of literature but here I go. I won't go into spoiler territory and will mostly just express my fascination with this book and try and get YOU to read it too :)

For what it is, House of Leaves is a difficult book for a number of reasons, the almost ironic pseudo-academic passages, our incredibly unreliable narrator Johnny Truant and his at times incoherent ramblings, the dismembered structure of the story as a whole and the incredible experimentation with page layout, typography and general weirdness of it all. But, I strongly believe that once you ease yourself into the first couple of chapters, with enough free time most of the book will pass like a breeze, or as some people may call it "a page turner". Also, there are lots of dense pages where you have to slow down a bit but some of the chapters are totally rapid-fire.

Another interesting thing about this behemoth is that I can't really restrain it to being a single genre, the top genre here on Goodreads is "Horror" but in my opinion this is much, much more than just that and to be honest I wont even try to explain it with genres, maybe the closest would be "Experimental Meta-Horror" if such genre exists.

There are so many twist and turns in the story and so many different interpretations that the possibilities of the "mystery" seem almost endless. However, I think that the best part of the book IS the journey of reading it, sure the ending is great and manages to encapsulate the chaos pretty well but I think the act of reading this thing in general is the excitement of it all, probably the most fun I've had in literature in, well, ever.

The act of reading may be fun here, but this is In my honest opinion not a funny book, it cracks some good jokes from time to time and there is some more humorous characters but again, I can't really confine it to mere descriptors since it offers a lot. Some people have stated that they found it straight up scary, some cried, some found it mysterious and some, funny and I can confidently say the book can be all that to different readers. I personally found the story incredibly sad, not in a depressing way to be honest but in a strong emotional way, accompanied by Nine Inch Nail's "Ghosts" album series this book made me FEEL a lot. Still have that gaping feeling in my chest as I'm writing this and to be honest books that manage to make me FEEL are the best, I'm also sure this book is capable of making you feel something too.

If any of this sounds like an interesting time by all means give this book a chance! Few will regret it :) Be sure to stay out of spoiler territory and don't Google much, some things are better when you don't know a lot about them. (Also, this is in no way a book to be read in e-book format, I highly suggest you buy the "Remastered Full-Color Edition" since it gives the best experience, or if you know me personally hit me up and I'll happily lend it to you!) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Violence, Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Body horror, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Animal death, Blood, Forced institutionalization, and Suicide

Minor: Self harm, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, and Sexual assault

akiram's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective 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? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It's hard to put into words the rollercoaster of emotions this book made me go through. I loved and I despised at the same time, it was gut wrenching in a lot parts and heartwarming in others. Altought the text is at times difficult to read because of its structure, I think that it's worth the struggle. Would not recommend to everyone because it can be triggering at times and it's a massive book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Addiction, Bullying, Child abuse, Suicide, Alcoholism, Body horror, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship