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melliedm's review
- 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
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.
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
bi_n_large's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, Gun violence, Violence, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Gore, Sexual content, and Drug use
Moderate: Death, Child abuse, Alcohol, and Suicide
Minor: Rape and Cancer
rgraham's review
Graphic: Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Murder, Drug abuse, Sexual violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Addiction, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Death, and Child death
kkalicky94's review
- 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? It's complicated
4.5
Graphic: Death, Grief, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Addiction, Alcohol, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, and Violence
Moderate: Animal death, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Gun violence
canopicfemme's review against another edition
2.25
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.
Graphic: Animal death, Rape, Violence, Death, Mental illness, and Sexual content
Moderate: Child abuse and Drug abuse
Minor: Ableism, Racism, and Cancer
laneport's review
- 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
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
- 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
3.5
Graphic: Sexual content, Cursing, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Animal death, Mental illness, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, and Alcohol
Minor: Car accident, Sexual violence, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, and Infidelity
cosmicsapphic's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Drug use, Gun violence, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Vomit, Gore, Grief, Drug abuse, and Death
Minor: Rape
ggcd1981's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Grief, Mental illness, Suicide, Violence, Abandonment, Drug use, Misogyny, Sexual content, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Addiction, Confinement, Death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Car accident, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Ableism, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Rape and Excrement
woweewhoa's review against another edition
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Violence, Animal death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Death, Forced institutionalization, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Body horror, Child abuse, Animal cruelty, and Blood
Moderate: Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Child death, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Ableism, Gun violence, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Suicide, Vomit, Physical abuse, Rape, Car accident, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Excrement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Minor: Homophobia and Cancer