Review by michaila3 - House of Leaves

michaila3 's review for:

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

4.75

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Oh my god. This book is incredible and so genuinely fun to read! The format is so so cool and definitely takes some getting used to but I loved it. I didn’t much care for a lot of Johnny’s parts for a lot of it, I found them to be unnecessarily long, not very useful, and just kinda uncomfortably explicit lmao. He did grow on me, especially when he started showing signs of schizophrenia and/or insanity caused by the house indirectly?? I fear I’m going to have to watch a video essay or two to fully understand this book (actually I think the author may be the only one who knows everything about it) but I loved the characters but especially Navidsons brother Tom. Not only that but there were some parts that made me genuinely spooked- the main one that comes to mind is the journal from 1610 ending with “ftaires! we haue found ftaires!” bc that seriously made my stomach drop. And oh wow that ending was phenomenal. The part of Navidson seeing a distant star in the abyss and it being Karen’s flashlight? I actually cried and I’m tearing up again just thinking of it. She stepped into the house again to be with him??? and the “I felt this warm, sweet air on my face, and then I opened my eyes and I could see trees and grass. I thought to myself ‘We’ve died. We’ve died and this is where you go after you die.’ But it turned out to be just our front yard.” AHHHHH!!! Did true love save the day and dissolve the house? Maybe. Though it was written like a really in depth thesis, this book had so much heart at the centre of the story.
Update- I have watched a video essay and do believe the theory that the Navidson Record doesn’t exist (especially at the end when Navidson was burning a book that was revealed to be The House of Leaves….like HUH) and in doing so I have come to appreciate Johnny’s parts much more. I do think this is a way to cope with what happened to his mother…but actually also with the water heater incident of him changing the text directly…maybe he added that to make this into an allegory of his relationship with his mother? I DONT KNOW AND I DONT THINK I EVER WILL BUT THIS WAS A GREAT BOOK

Content Warnings