Reviews tagging 'War'

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

13 reviews

antares's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

after exactly a month, i’ve finished my journey/experience/fever-dream of House of Leaves. 

and holy shit, did i love it. i have way too many thoughts and notes to even summarize my adoration and analysis  here but it was right up my alley.

of course, this is not a book for everyone—This is not for you. but if you’re a fan of ergodic literature, academic criticism, and long-winded hedonistic stream-of-consciousnesses, and if you know what you’re in for, then i would recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Car accident, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual violence, Sexual assault, and Rape

Minor: Ableism, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Death of parent, Sexism, and War

5am's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Dementia, Drug abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Car accident

Moderate: Rape

Minor: War, Cancer, and Cannibalism

pourrir's review

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

I really loved this book, and for a couple of reasons.
First, Danielewski really pokes fun at dense, useless academic writing by presenting the neverending footnotes, side-subjects, and haughty language as the ramblings of Zampano. It made reading the text fun, to gleefully skip past lists of fake names, books, magazine articles, and interviews that have never existed and are used only to frame the story.
Also, the formatting was used to further the suspense or the theme of each chapter perfectly, making it an engaging read. I could understand why some may not like this book, as it was challenging to follow at times (jumping back and forth through the text) but was so worth it. 
Without getting into what actually happens, I really enjoyed that there was a satisfying ending (imo) to both the Navidson story and Johnny's story. At any moment I honestly expected Zampano's transcript to just end, leaving the ending even more ambiguous than it already is. 

Also, filling out the content warning section of this review made me realize how messed up this book is.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Violence, and Mental illness

Moderate: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Vomit

Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, and War