A review by gilmargirl
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious reflective tense slow-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? Yes

3.5

I am not sure if I'm in the minority, but this book didn't scare me like I wanted it to. It had some good spooky moments and it was unsettling, but I couldn't help but find the academic tone more amusing than anything else. At times the compounding footnotes were just ridiculous and the tonal whiplash the book had sometimes just made me laugh. It's hard to describe why, it just struck me more as funny than frightening. I still enjoyed this book though, and it's definitely different from anything I've ever read or probably will read again. Worth the read for that reason alone.
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