Rating: 
Summary: Full of hot air
Review: This is the most phony, dishonest, arrogant piece of writing I have ever encountered. Amazing what a bunch of silly type-setting can do to reviewers.
Rating: 
Summary: Judge this book by its cover
Review: I bought this book at the recommendation of a friend, and after becoming addicted to Poe's "Haunted". The book sat in its place in line behind 4-5 other books, but its stylish black cover and the hints my friend had dropped about its contents compelled the book to cut in line.I'm glad it did, but I'm equally glad to be done and return to straightforward narrative. This is a very fun book, though some sections (notably the long description of architectural accoustics) read like scholarly articles and may turn off many readers. My recommendation: skim. Though I read pretty much every word, I think in retrospect that that wasn't probably the best way to approach the book. In fact, starting with the Appendices (especially the Whalestoe Letters) and moving on from there might help the reader get the most out of the main narrative. Also, when flipping through the book, don't be intimidated by the textual abnormalities. The book holds your hand. By the time you get to the pages with the forward, backward, and mirrored-boxed text you'll know how to handle it (skim). Other reviewers have grappled the theme and content more eloquently than I could. Buy this book and let it sit next to your bed for as long as you can. You won't be able to keep your hands off it.
Rating:
Summary: House of Psychobabble...
Review: To the reader who looks at this book and thinks it is intriguing, they are right. However, when one delves a bit deeper into this book they find it is nothing but hogwash. This book makes fine kindling for fires, I must say. I opened this book to find nothing but psychobabble. A jumble of random pages strewn together to form a story. The pages vary from vast, typewritten monologues to blank pages with the word "the" to fill the space. There are pages with just dots and lines, some form of modern art perhaps. One page even has a random musical staff on it with notes. On the pages that are filled with words, some are upside down, some are crossed out, some paragraphs are boxed by blue squares. At the bottom of the pages is random, seemingly fabricated sources for the information. The book is not a novel, but rather a bunch of scrapped together stories to form a whole. It is rather pretentious and confusing. I felt stupid while reading it when I found a bibliography with psychiatric journals in the middle and then at the end when the index indexes every word ever used in the book, from "bat" to "hair" and beyond. Do yourself a favor and skip this book. Read some good literature, like Kerouac or Kesey or Burgess or Joyce. A bookseller I was talking with dismissed this book as B.S. and he was right. Stay out out of the "House of Leaves"!
Rating: 
Summary: This one wreaked havoc with my blood pressure
Review: This is one of the most terrifying books I've ever read. Unconventional would be the understatement of the year when describing House of Leaves. Some people are so put off by the strange layout of the book that they don't read it. MISTAKE!! I have to say, even though this is a difficult read at times (long footnotes, backward and upside down text) it's a total reading experience that you will not regret when it's all said and done. This book is so far beyond JUST horror. The dark and abyss-like house can be equated to secrets, fears, all the dark parts of ourselves that grow and can get out of control if not dealt with.
Rating: 
Summary: Some other books come to mind
Review: This is a fun thriller. It's not particularly original, and it doesn't experiment. The only real envelope it pushes is that of how explicitly derivitive a book can be of other works of literature. Is this a justified part of the pomo/metafiction gimmick/theme? Perhaps. But regurgitating previously used ideas (in abundance) as main themes allows Danielewski to look much more clever and creative than he actually is. Want spatial paradoxes? Houses with impossible rooms? Obscure old scholars who appear only as secondary sources and in bizarre, extensive footnotes? Read The Third Policeman, by Flann O'Brien. All those elements are there, in one book, written around 1940. Then of course there's the content borrowings from Borges (the ruminations on labyrinths and the minotaur, the character of Pierre Menard) and Lovecraft (the book that drives you nutty), and style borrowings from many others, as mentioned in a few previous reviews. To those who are impressed by the innovative ideas and style of this book, really, I suggest you look into the literature that it's being compared to. There's a lot of great stuff out there, done better. And you'll be a little surprised at how faithfully a lot of it is reproduced in "House of Leaves." All that said, though, the book's not bad for a light thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Spooky
Review: I heard of this book when I saw the author on stage with his sister performing the song, "Hey Pretty." I bought this book and was just sucked in from the very first page. I have been told this is a very eccentric book, but I didn't expect the tone to be set on the first page. I finished this book in just a couple of days. It took me a long time b/c of the complicated narrations and structuring of some pages. But the way this is presented really emphasizes the eerieness of the story. this is a haunting book and will give you goosebumps!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!!!
Review: This book will take you on an amazing adventure that only the very brave and late-nite readers can stay up long enough to finish it. Mark Z. Danielewski created this interesting, action-filled story with so many twists and turns that you will be too confused to speak! This topsy-turvey story is great for anyone who likes mystery, history and the completely weird and strange. And durring this ordeal you must ONLY listen to Poe- she will continue to explain things that you might miss in the story, not to menton rock your world! so overall- READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Held my interest and then became ridiculous.
Review: Wow. A house bigger on the inside than the outside. What a cool clever idea I thought. And for a while it was. Then the nonsense with the lists and silly fonts began to seem without purpose and tiresome and I gave up. Can you recommend 1/3 of a book to someone?
Rating:
Summary: Creepy and Thought-Provoking
Review: On the surface, the book is an academic study of _The Navidson Chronicle_ -- a film about a house that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside -- written by the mysterious Zampano and with an introduction and footnotes by Johnny Truant. All too quickly, however, Johnny's footnotes begin to tell their own story of parnoia and fear. The story of _The Navidson Chronicle_ itself is intriguing and creepy. Even though the action is dictated and analyzed by Zampano, there's still a great deal of suspense and tension that comes through to the reader. For example, in the section entitled "Tom's Story," Zampano describes a scene in which Navidson's brother Tom is left alone in a section of the house. Tom's fear is so palpable, that even though the events are filtered through Zampano's narrative, I got goosebumps. Another of my favorite parts in the novel is the section entitled "What Some Have Thought," wherein Navidsons's girlfriend asks several celebrities what they think of _The Navidson Chronicle_. Not only do these segments show Danielewski's great sense of humor, they showcase his ability to take on specific, unique narrative voices. When he takes on the voices of Camille Paglia, Harold Bloom, Anne Rice, and Stephen King, he completely captures their narrative styles to great comic effect. One of my favorite things about this novel is that even though I read it over a year ago, I'm still thinking about it. Is it all in Johnny's head? Or is it one of his mother's delusions? Or could it all be Zampano himself? Read it and decide for yourself!
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of hyper-conceptual modern fiction
Review: I was blown away by this book. Drawn in and hooked, whenever I wasn't reading it I felt I was betraying or cheating on it. I read it in two sittings, yet wished it had been one. I sat in awe at the gall of the authors daringness, and with glee as I felt all the pieces fall together. This is daring, intelligent, articulate and absorbing fiction. It does what any good book should do, take the norms and conventions and stretch them, test them, and make you go places with text that you're not used to. he used every aspect of literary and artistic style to bring his vision into being. To the author, if i could say that I had written any book, it would be this one.
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