Rating: 
Summary: not bad if you skip the tricky stuff
Review: 'House of Leaves' is straightahead psychological horror tricked out with a deal of postmodern gadgetry. The story is about 'the house': a reified form of personal psychology which literally enables people's fears to take physical form. This is not a new idea - Stanislav Lem's 'Solaris' got there first (and much more impressively) - and is not done in any way which either scared me silly me or gave me much pause for deep reflection. That said, the story, when you get past the everywhichway typography, endless footnotes, and faux-academic diversions (which can be skipped) does crack along nicely. The question the book really raises is, why not just drop the pretentious stuff and get on and TELL that story? In Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose' (the book 'Leaves' constantly invites comparison with), there is a good reason for featuring multiperspectival takes on the same content. Using different discourses - narrative, philosophy, aesthetics, forensics - helps us get new leverage on what's going on: the shunts between these discourses serve a purpose which is not just explanatory, but also invites ways to excitingly reconceptualise what 'entertainment' can be. However, in contrast, Danielewski's various postmodern devices just do not work - either in terms of providing fresh insights, or suggesting a new form of art. The multivocality, archives of letters, parallel storylines, pictures, 'concrete writing', and so on, don't shed much new light on what is relatively straightforward content, because they don't need to. The devices (among these, see-through pages and upside down footnotes are notable) end up at best redundant and at worst plain annoying. That said, 'House of Leaves' is not as bad as some people have suggested. It's an entertaining tale with good characterisation and a nice central idea - but definitely NOT an intellectual behemoth. For my money, it's enjoyable and worth a speed-read, but for the real postmodern thriller/horror deal, go to 'The Name of the Rose'.
Rating:
Summary: Sheer lunacy,.. but fun.
Review: It was an interesting concept, I thought to myself as I started getting into "House Of Leaves". The idea that sections of a house could actually alter their appearance; just to open a closet door, and have its hallways go on and on and on... It wasn't totally original, but still interesting and done well. After Karen and Navy first move in, and he notices how the inside of the house somehow mysteriously measures to be a fraction of an inch longer than the exterior,.. this was sort of priceless. The ways in which the author would describe the happenings within the ever-growing hallways and staircases was well thought out. The footnotes have a tendency to drive you nuts. It's not too often that a fictitious novel has just as many or more footnotes (that are a story in themselves) than the actual book. Most of them can either be glanced at or skipped altogether. But, you do always have the feeling that something important was being overlooked. And, the ever-changing altered print was hilarious to say the least. I know that Danielewski did this to express and play along with the books subject matter, but it was sheer lunacy. No doubt, Mark Danielewski put an awful lot of time and effort into this novel. You can't take that from him. It can be a lot of fun if you're in the mood for it. The reader can't help but feel the devastation present as Navy uses his last match used for light inside the maze; as he begins to burn the book he's reading right up to his fingers, just so he can finish seeing what he's reading. Then, as it finally burns out, leaving him lost in eternal darkness,... Well,.. read it and form your own opinion. But beware,.. it's as crazy as the house. This book is insane.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes a house is just a house
Review: When I first saw this book on the shelf, the cover struck me. When I picked it up and flipped through the pages, the layout of the text indicated that something different was going on within House of Leaves. To find out what, I plopped down the money (actually, I plopped down the magic plastic) and bought the thing. I found the book while browsing the horror section. Even though there are adequate moments of the grotesque and arabesqe, the book is not bound within the genre. Perhaps if Mr. Danielewski conceives another novel that transcends the genre, or if he produces a work outside the genre, House of Leaves will find itself in the more general literature section where we find other novels that can't be classified within a genre. And the more famous and literate you are, the more likely that the literati will stop defining you. This is not a novel for people who want to work while they read. My wife tells me that Mr. Vonnegut would not approve of making a reader work like Mr. Danielewski makes a reader work. (Mr. Vonnegut was not available to comment himself.) However, Mr. Danielewski does provide some guidance and teaches the reader how to read the novel. I won't go to the extent of comparing Mr. Danielewski to Joyce or Woolfe, but like writers before him who experimented with the way novels are written, he takes the time to ensure that the work is understandable. House of Leaves shows both what is good and what is bad with "academic" fiction. We know that Mr. Danielewski has stayed awake during his fiction workshops by evidence of all the nifty little tricks he employs. But underlying those nifty tricks is good writing. Without a solid base for writing, all the tricks would be lost and the end product would just be an exercise in overindulgence. If I didn't have to turn the book around so many times to follow the text or read a footnote, I would have given House of Leaves five stars. To get to the point: if you're willing to provide a little effort or if you're looking for something a little bit different, pick up House of Leaves.
Rating: 
Summary: An Amazing Novel
Review: The people who gave this novel only one star make me laugh. They are describing the exact reason why this book should be read and why I enjoyed it. Was it work? Well, yes but it was also a lot of fun. Read this novel to be challenged, frightened, intrigued, and entertained. This is a truly amazing and unique piece of work.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: It's one of the most unique works of literature I've ever read - it's a challenging, at times difficult read, and parts of it work better than others, but it gets under the skin more than any book that I've ever read. I turned several friends on to it and they experienced the same thing. Some people (like me) think it's a masterwork, others think it's an over-the-top piece of self-indulgence writing. Just an amazing novel.
Rating: 
Summary: NEEDS A NEGATIVE AMOUNT ON THE STARS
Review: I like all kinds of books. But this is the most sick and twisted "book?" I have ever (tried) to read. What a waste of money! After trying to wade through this mess I finally decided that I don't care what happens to these people. They can stay in there huge dark pit and no one would ever miss them, or care. The headaches I got trying to figure out this massive mistake for a novel just wasn't worth it. What's with all the swirls and backward paragraphs and even two seperate stories on one page? I tried to like this. I really did. I kept telling myself, " It will all come together, it will all be worth it with a fantastic story, these people will really begin to matter to me...". NOT SO!!! Life is too short to waste precious minutes with novels like this when there are so many wonderful books that trap you, change you, make you think and feel. NOT THIS ONE. SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!
Rating:
Summary: The biggest waste of seventeen bucks!
Review: Quite possibly one of the most annoying books ever published, House of Leaves would have Gutenberg suffocating on dirt in his grave. Yes, I do understand that this is supposed to be art, but it seems to me to be nothing more than a sophmoric attempt at publishing something 'different'. Nevermind that the plot, as the esteemed NY Times Reviewer, Mr. Robert Kelly, noted was as silly as the Blair Witch Project, but I think even that would have appeased me were the book not as annoying to read as a latin manuscript read with a flashlight in a car with no suspension traveling down a bumpy road. I think this book would be a perfect hiding place for someone confined to a mind devoid of sense, structure, and stability - and more people have those things than one might think.
Rating:
Summary: I've got you under my skin...
Review: This book had gotten inside my skin and I can't scratch it out. I think Mr. Truant would be impressed by the effect he had on me with the prose he was transcribing from Zampano, his blind neighbor who'd penned a critical work regarding a nonexistent documentary about a very, very strange and frightening house in Virginia. House of Leaves *sounds* and actually is very complicated, but it all makes sense once you start reading it. Despite the multiple narrators and numerous footnotes as well as very strange arrangements of text within the book, it's surprisingly accessible. Navidson's Record, had it been a real movie, would have scared me to death. It does remind one of Blair Witch Project - the pseudocraze surrounding it, the spookiness, the handheld cameras - but Blair Witch is silly childish funny stuff in comparison to the terror you're bound to experience in the able hands of Navidson, or should I say Zampano, or maybe it's Mr. Truant - or, actually, just the marvelously talented Mr. Danielewski. For some reason, besides the oddities of the house and obsessiveness of all characters involved, the one thing that haunts my dreams is a story of Minotaure that was supposedly excised from Zampano's book - readers are in for a most extraordinary retelling of this myth. I can't say enough good about this, I just can't. This is an experience that will consume you whole. If you're claustrophobic, prepare for prolonged therapy from inevitable aftereffects. If you're not claustrophobic, you will become afflicted. Going back to stare at the pictures of staircase again now...
Rating:
Summary: This is the best book ever written; it may change your life.
Review: I can understand all the people who hated this book; it is definitely NOT for everyone. For one, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone of average intelligence, because it is a book of intellectual decadence and it will absolutely blow your mind if you can grasp it. I have wanted to be a writer, but reading this book discourages me because I know that I could never be this good. Though I shouldn't let it discourage me, because *nobody* could ever be this good except Mr. Danielewski himself. No other writer in history which I have ever encountered is half this talented. It raises the bar by an unbelievable amount... it's a whole new paradigm of writing, using stylistic arrangement as well as just the words... this is a book that could never be perfectly converted to video, because it's more than just the story that is unbelievably gripping; it's the way the book is arranged. I would recommend this to a lot of people, except it does have some extremely explicit and graphic sex scenes. Don't read it if you are disturbed by sexuality. If you're an intelligent, open-minded thinker, who loves literature, get ready to discover the best book of the century, the millennium, or perhaps ever. I can not even begin to express the power that this book has over me, and the awe I feel of Mr. Danielewski. If the whole world were on fire, and I could only save one book, this would be it, because it is the pinnacle of human literary achievement. Ever since the first written alphabets in Sumer and Phoenicia, history has been leading up to this: House of Leaves. "This is not for you." This is perhaps true for many. Know thyself.
Rating:
Summary: Mistaken Idenities
Review: I think Bret Easton Ellis should stay out of the business of predicting what Thomas Pynchon thinks.
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