Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - House of Leaves

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

149 reviews

faithkol's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

About a house that is bigger on the inside then the outside. This book can be very confusing. Basically, the Navidson record is a documentary about the Navidson Family who lived in the house that’s larger on the inside, and a man named Zampano wrote a manuscript analyzing the film. After Zampano died, Johnny Truant finds the manuscript and notes and falls down an obsession with it that drives him crazy.

This story had so much potential, but Johnny Truant was quite inappropriate and disgusting. And the whole book overall was extremely hard to read and confusing. The Navidson family/Navidson records was actually very interesting because of their strange house, but majority of the story didn’t talk about them and was more scientific and boring. I would not read this story again because it was too long for what actually happened in it.

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azureumbreon's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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monroebays's review

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.5

This book demands much more of you than most, but it is so worth it. I’m sure every review says it but I’m gonna say it again: I can’t describe it, really. Just give it a try.

This is a book about a man piecing together an unfinished academic book about a documentary about a very strange house. The story of the man working on the book and the book itself make up the majority of the text. As you can imagine, it’s confusing and very layered. At some point, it starts to try to loop you into the story.

Danielewski is obsessed with the mechanics of words, paper, and knowledge. This book presents you with a tangled mess, carefully curated to confuse you, move you, scare you. And because danielewski’s deep knowledge of words is on display, you’re left wondering how fully that mess can be cleaned up into a full narrative if only you read it properly. I finished the book with many mysteries unsolved, but find myself drawn back to the book again to investigate further. If you’ve read the book already, you understand why this effect is probably why the book’s horror is so effective.

At the end of the day, the story is kind of secondary to the reading experience. It’s crazy. It’s fun. It’s dark and sad and weird. Just give it a few chapters and see if it’s for you.

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porcelainheart_'s review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was interested in this cult classic after reading the blurb for it on Amazon - a line of which claimed that this book was the sole inspiration for the backrooms. Having finally read this for myself, I can honestly say the blurb and description don't do this book any justice whatsoever. In fact, I think it's intentionally misleading. It makes you think you're about to read something along the lines of Coraline, where things aren't what they appear on the outside as opposed to the inside. A morbid yet whimsical story with a happy ending.

What you get instead is a slow catalogued descent into catatonic madness. It starts innocently enough, albeit dark, but progressively gets worse the more you read

and subsequently, the more Johnny reads and gets involved himself

. I see why this book has received the praise and admiration it has over the years - it captures with disturbingly accurate and horrifying clarity someone edging closer and closer towards the brink of insanity, to be finally being pushed off that edge, all at the turn of the century. It is highly recommended (and almost required) to read a physical copy of this book, especially for first-timers. The rambling passages

from both Johnny and Zampanô, directly implying that the same madness that overtook him in life has been passed on to Johnny when he began transcribing his manuscript after his death

, crossed out/destroyed sections, small details added into each section, the footnotes and end notes, and bizarre formatting all add to the oppressive feeling of complete derealization of the self, the ever-slipping grip of mental stability, and the overwhelming dread that this story won't have a happy ending. For anyone.

The lucid moments of clarity are seamlessly integrated with the slow descent into utter mental chaos, making it extremely difficult at times to tell what's real and what isn't, what really happened and what didn't happen. Many times as I read this book, I started questioning whether or not some of the personal interjections written by Johnny Truant

more specifically, the sexual encounters he seems to have with every one of Zampanô's personal readers that he manages to get in contact with

were actually fabricated by Truant for reasons that weren't clear at first. Only to learn that Truant was truthful in his admissions and fully admits where he lies about events and where he doesn't, somehow managing to keep even that ability despite his crumbling mental state.

Ingeniously enough, this book also makes you think that everything you're reading about is also real.

The Navidson Record, all the reviews and comments about the film from celebrities and movie critics, the academic talks and papers analyzing and scrutinizing mundane aspects of the film such as Will Navidson's return to the house on Ash Tree Lane towards the end, all of it immaculately detailed to the point of exceptional plausibility. It feels like this actually happened

. It lends credence to what I'm sure is a popular fan theory about the story - everything in the manuscript written by Zampanô; the film, the house, the stories and all the key players involved, occurred in an alternate reality.

The frequent discrepancies of time that are present throughout the story are more than just a side effect of Truant's obsession that eventually leads to a severe damaging of his sanity. Zampanô's madness

and consequently, his blindness

were likely caused by somehow glimpsing into this reality where a house existed in the Virginia countryside that, as he put it, constituted "

a rape of physics

" by producing rooms and hallways totally invisible to the outside world. A reality where such a house needed to be photographed and documented visually, else no one on the planet would believe it actually existed. And a house where so much evidence was compiled, it was turned into a major motion picture premiering around the world. Except that world wasn't our own.

The existence of this alternate timeline and reality, as well as a sudden rift within time itself that would make this reality cross over into our current reality, would be sufficient evidence for the manuscript's contents

especially Johnny's encounter with the band that plays at the bar in Flagstaff. Their lyrics make mention of the Five and a Half Minute Hallway referenced in Zampanô's manuscript, and they have a published copy of the very manuscript he's currently transcribing, well before he is finished with it

. The idea that something this elaborate is totally made up, by someone who possessed no post-secondary educational degrees

and who had been completely blind for well over two decades

is practically inconceivable.

If you've ever thought of what it must feel like to experience a psychotic break in real time, look no further than this book. Believe the thousands of reviews left of it on Amazon, Goodreads, Google and everywhere else that chronicles book reviews.

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ethanlaz's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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aguywhopatsdogs's review

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

While I enjoyed the footnotes, multiple authors, and unconventional format at first, it got old. What felt new and exciting at the beginning, felt like a gimmick towards the middle and end. Truant was interesting at first, but the more I read, the less I liked him, and by the end I wanted no part of what he had to say. I also get that the Zampano/Textbook portions are there as critique of that culture, but it's still really, really boring to read, and there's a ton of it. My favorite part was when we're with Navidson and the House . That was engaging, and I was invested in the characters (until a footnote going into one of Johnny Truant's gratuitous sexual escapades ground the story to a halt.)

The "fun" of this book is that it's a labyrinth in itself, and requires the reader to be fully invested in figuring out what is happening. I've heard you get more out of this book the more you put in, but I was left unsatisfied (personally) with what I got out of it. I flipped to the footnotes/appendices, went back and reread sections, "deciphered" (or looked up) a code here and there, but ultimately what I got did not enhance the experience.

This book almost entirely rests on whether or not you're willing to engage on a "meta" level. If that sounds fun to you, I actually think you're going to LOVE this book. It's chock full of that. There are whole websites, forums, and subreddits dedicated to figuring out what is actually going on. A person could spend hours diving into all that, and I'm sure that's a part of why this book is as beloved as it is. I personally wasn't able to connect with it on that level. It's a bit of a bummer, but it is what it is. The first line in this book is "This is not for you," and that was true for me.

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elinor__dashwood's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.75

this is either the most pretentious, ostentatious book i've ever read or the deepest horror story i've ever encountered, but the academic metafiction really sold it for me.

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cgoiris's review

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This is a difficult one to give stars. I sort of think I get what the author was trying to do. I can see multiple layers to the story, from criticising media critics to trying to evoke a deeply unsettled feeling that follows the reader beyond the book.

But there were also parts I despised. Why does every woman in this book have to be profoundly damaged? Why does Bambi never really get a personality beyond motherly concern for our main character? Why does the author try to establish deep and bleak backstories with a couple of sentences, multiple times? It's already a 700 page book, trees died for this, don't be shy, flesh it out.

I'm gonna try to do the content warnings but I'm probably gonna forget a few because there's A LOT.

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cryptix's review

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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.

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marielcariker's review

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challenging dark emotional 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? Yes

3.5

I’ve never read anything like this and maybe never will again. Fascinating and infuriating! Crazy to read something that only works as a physical book and would not translate on an e-reader. I loved the journey but don’t necessarily recommend reading unless you like a challenge.

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