Reviews with content warning for Child abuse - House of Leaves

Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

102 reviews

apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

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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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danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

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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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stefo's review against another edition

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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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akiram's review against another edition

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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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bi_n_large's review against another edition

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dark 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

4.0

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canopicfemme's review against another edition

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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.

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zaphod_beeblebrox's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense

5.0

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tristemono's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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adverb17's review against another edition

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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

3.5

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ggcd1981's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

Eu remei esse livro, o que não deveria ter me surpreendido. House of leaves é uma obra a qual eu tinha ouvido vários Booktubers falar sobre, a maioria deles dando boas notas. Contudo todos os booktubers que vi deram o aviso de que o livro “não é para todo mundo” e que você precisa pesquisar para compreendê-lo melhor, e, segundo muitos, esse é um texto presunçoso. A proposta inicial é que a obra consiste de uma história dentro de uma história dentro de outra história. Todas essas informações sobre House of Leaves despertaram minha curiosidade, mas após a leitura do mesmo vejo que eu não sou a leitora para ele. Sendo justa com a obra minha leitura começou em desvantagem pois não tenho a cópia física então tive que ler a cópia digital para kindle e adaptação para esse formato teve problemas. Isso tornou a leitura um pouco distante da intencionada pelo autor e representou uma dificuldade a mais em um livro que já tem obstáculos por natureza. House of leaves faz diversas referências a uma ampla gama de fontes nas mais diversas áreas de interesse, Física, Mitologia Grega, Arquitetura, Psicologia, etc. Eu comecei tentando pesquisar as informações, mas se tornou cansativo bem rápido. No momento em que estou em minha vida não quis dedicar tanto tempo e esforço a um único livro que não estava me prendendo tanto. A obra não é ruim e com certeza é bastante original, mas a sensação geral que tive foi de uma boa história diluída em um monte de informações que muitas vezes não adicionam muito (por exemplo uma interminável lista de nomes de fotógrafos). A narrativa que o autor chama de The Navidson Records está no coração de House of Leaves, um suposto documentário de um evento inexplicável ocorrido na casa da família Navidson. A existência desse documentário é questionada no próprio livro, mas a partir dele se inicia a narrativa de Zampanò, e a partir dessas duas se inicia a narrativa de Johnny Truant. A história do documentário é a mais interessante e a mais próxima de ser coerente. As histórias de Zampanò e de Johnny são mais desconexas e cheias de buracos. Mas em geral ler essa obra é como tentar ouvir uma narrativa contada por alguém absurdamente dispersivo. Quando este narrador começa o conto ele logo envereda por uma tangente e nela se aprofunda, quando você não lembra mais do que ocorria no conto original o narrador retorna a este deixando você completamente perdido e cortando qualquer tipo de emoção que você deveria sentir durante a história. Essas muitas interrupções e tangentes que, diversas vezes, não tinham qualquer real relevância para o texto, acontecem durante todo livro diluindo os pontos de interesse e deixando meus sentimentos sobre a obra “Mornos”.

Um ponto que não gostei da história, por se sensível a crueldade contra animais, foi um momento em que um cachorrinho foi morto de forma cruel. Eu realmente gostaria que autores achassem outra forma de mostrar que um personagem é mau. Outro ponto que achei irritante foi que todas as personagens femininas no livro foram sexualizadas mesmo quando não havia necessidade. Desde de Karen Green, esposa de Will Navidson, a todas as mulheres com quem Johnny Truant interagiu. As mulheres nesse livro pareciam existir em função dos personagens masculinos. Fosse como esposa de Navidson, como mãe de Johnny ou um simples encontro sexual ou fantasia do mesmo, as mulheres em House of Leaves giram ao redor dos personagens masculinos e existem para cumprir uma função na história desses. Um elemento que me surpreendeu na obra foi o realismo dos ataques de pânico de Johnny. Eu não esperava e quase foi um gatilho para mim, mas, mesmo assim, apreciei a representação. Em geral minha opinião é que há histórias interessantes no livro, mas elas se encontram diluídas no excesso de informação desnecessária. Informação esta que foi incluída por questões de estilo e não de pertinência a narrativa. Aliás fica claro que o estilo é prioridade em House of Leaves em detrimento do story telling. Se o autor pelo menos tivesse sido mais coeso e objetivo nas divagações o texto prenderia muito mais e não sentiria tão forte que o livro se auto sabota ao desarmar toda tensão, apreensão, medo, enfim qualquer emoção com tangentes longas, incoerentes e tediosas. Isso também contribuiu para a sensação de que os “finais positivos” para as histórias de Navidson e Truant não foram merecidos ou se quer fizeram sentido. A impressão passada é de que Mark Z. Danielewski queria aqueles finais para os personagens e foi isso.

Enfim, eu aprecio que o autor tentou fazer algo diferente e original. Existe mérito nisso, contudo o resultado me deixou com a sensação de que poderia der sido melhor. Assim, dou 3 estrelas, o livro foi acima da média porem me deixou com as frustrações de que o meu “esforço não foi o suficiente” e do que a história “poderia ter sido”.

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