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

5.0

Form Follows Function in “House of Leaves”. At this point, I feel like simply listing adjectives might be the best way to describe the book: fascinating, challenging, frustrating, funny, scary, heart-wrenching, and at turns both pretentious and self-deprecating. This is not a quick nor easy read. The books contains a wraparound story, a literary criticism of a fictional found-footage film, footnotes, footnotes to footnotes, long digressions, transcripts, “missing” sections, numerous appendices, experimental page layouts, colored text, and more. (Beware the section regarding the labyrinth – it is easy to get lost there.) At times, one is waiting for the whole thing to make sense, to coalesce into something more than a gimmicky post-modern experimental work. And…. It does. It comes together beautifully. Again, this is an example of the format of the book helping us to sympathize/empathize with the characters. The more I reflect on the book, the more I enjoy it. In the end, it is a thought provoking story of love, loss, and healing. Good stuff. Well worth the effort to read/explore this house fully.