Rating: 
Summary: My heroin
Review: I became addicted to Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves" within the first three chapters. I finished the entire book in 2 days. I refer to it as my heroin only because I sacrficed time and sleep to read it. I could not put the book down. I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Better than the Bible's Effect on Reader
Review: this, is the greatest thing ive ever set my eyes on. nothing in my life, not a death, birth, situation or ideal person has ever made me think and change the ways i look at thing as much as this book... its still hard to sleep. dont get this book if u have too much free time on your hands or if you have little patience.
Rating:
Summary: Indescribable
Review: ...In about a week, I read 70 pages and then all of the sudden 4 days later I was done. A book of story upon story, Danielewski has managed to create a thing of rare beauty. In the beginning, the story seems to only be about a young guy in California who can't get any sleep becacuse of a collection of papers that he found in an old guy's apartment. Yet when the story that Zampano wrote starts, the book becomes about a family, the Navidsons, that finds itself in a house that is much larger than they thought it to be. Inviting family, friends, and a team of explorers into the house, the situation slowly disintergrates until Navidson returns and finally sheds some light onto what the house is. As the characters in the so-called "Navidson Record" slowly descend into the darkness that the house brings, the young guy who's reading the record also slowly descends into a madness that even at the end still seems to be controlling him. This may seem to be a story of only a few, but it proves to be the story of all. Notwithstanding the content, the set-up of the book is sheer brilliance with footnotes that last pages and that shed absolutely no light onto the story, the Navidson story. Read this book and find yourself.
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Summary: Feel Small and Hunted by Beasts!
Review: Imagine yourself in the Kingdome stadium, sitting in the bleachers ALONE, the only one in the whole building, and the lights go out, and it is darker than PITCH BLACK, so dark you can't believe you're alive, and then the concrete steps all around you start to twist and elongate and the bleachers begin to shake and fold beneath you, trapping you in one place. Then it stops, and it is quiet for a long time. You are so scared you don't even breathe, until a low growl emerges in the distance, gets slowly louder and stronger until it is right beside you and tears through your body like FIRE. This is kind of like reading the House of Leaves. It begins with very strange anomolies of physics within a solitary house at the end of Ash Tree Lane, somewhere in Virginia. The walls stretch, small rooms suddenly appear where there was just a wall before, and the outside dimensions of the house are SMALLER than the inside dimensions. Will Navidson, a world-class photojournalist, lives there with his family, and although they are an adventurous and wickedly INTELLIGENT bunch, they haven't good enough humour to put up with the unknown horrors contained in their new home. After Will discovers the closet in the living room is not really a closet, but a hallway into a phenomenally large, black network of tunnels and caverns, the family unit splinters. Although it is tearing his family apart, Will cannot stop going into the forbidden labyrinth and FILMING. He hires some master-explorers to go in with him and they have a two week adventure that puts the best Steven King and Clive Barker to shame. What happens to them is so exciting and tense, the reading experience is UNPRECEDENTED. The cool thing about this book is the multiform approach to the material. Danielewski isn't afraid to confront this story head-on with in-depth psychological analyses of the characters, profound historical examinations of the house and its implications, cultural dissections of the story being written and the film contained in it, relentless scientific exploration into the mineralogical makeup of the structure itself, and maddeningly thorough explanations of the paranormal possibilities of the house and what happens in it. One of the dozens of alternate solutions to the puzzle of the house, is that it is a gateway into a parallel universe, with its own physical laws, and another is that it is actually the "house of many rooms" that Jesus described in the new testament. All of these approaches are given equal gravity in the story, and all are written with humour and a kind of cleverness that would put the literary marvel David Foster Wallace to shame. Danielewski is downright uncanny in his linguistic talent, and also quite effective with the emotional depth of the material. The only downfall is the length. He goes too far in some sections, especially the psychological sketches. This book is amazing, you can get lost in it just like in the labyrinth it describes. There's enough material in the footnotes and annotations alone for a complete novel. Be careful, though, and make sure you have a safe place to read it- it makes you feel like you're being hunted...
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely incredible!
Review: The best fiction i have ever read, House of Leaves is totally absorbing and amazing. A real page turner, with other redeeming qualities. If you have the time to give this book undevided attention, get it!
Rating: 
Summary: James Joyce meets Night of the Living Dead
Review: If I asked a grad literature class the task of writing something that would merge "Finnigan's Wake" with the script from "Night of the Living Dead" and put it in the context of a freshman survey text about Western Art, this novel could possibly be the outcome. I enjoy reading and I enjoy books, especially ones that have muti-tasks. In this case, a door stop comes to mind, not to mention the number of artistic blank pages..great for taking notes by the telephone! Just flip radomly and there you are with acres of blank page. And yes, I get the point of the author's message..over and over. I guess I'am just "not there", maybe locked into one of the many endless hallways of my mind.. The book has interesting parts, don't misunderstand, but this thing is work, and if I want to work to read, I take James Joyce anytime. I also suspect that the real author is more than one person and just having some fun with us. If you like puzzles, riddles and brain pain, this is your bonanza!
Rating:
Summary: Astounding!
Review: "House of Leaves" is beyond a shadow of a doubt the best novel I have read in the last five years. It intertwines so many elements, so masterfully, it's hard to know where to begin describing it. I guess the first comment I make should be: if you like your literature squarely in the mainstream, this is not a book for you. However, if you're open-minded this novel will not disappoint you. At it's heart, "House of Leaves" is the journal of a man who is piecing together a manuscript about a movie about a house that is getting bigger on the inside without any external change. Sound confusing? It is; but that's what draws you in. There are so many plot threads (many of them told through footnotes), and so many narrative voices that the reader is constantly being buffeted by "perception" vs. "reality". Within the context of the book you're never really sure what is going on, and you're therefore forced to think about what the novel as a whole, and its component parts, means. Furthermore, since the novel is supposed to represent an assemblage of manuscripts, there are frequently gaps in the available information, or it is only partially complete. As a result, I don't think any two people will ever have the same reading of this book, as your imagination is left free to fill in critical gaps, or leave them empty. In terms of categorization, "House of Leaves" defies it. I imagine most people would categorize it simply as Literature. However, it is undeniably one of the scariest books I have ever read. I wouldn't paint it with the "Horror" brush, but the explorations of the house's new rooms are among the most intense passages I have ever read. On the flip side, there are lines in this novel that had me laughing out loud. Finally, everything about "House of Leaves" makes you think. It is definitely a novel that will stay with you for a long time. In the end, what you take out of this book has a lot to do with what you bring to it. If you approach it with an open mind, and really take the time to think about what you're reading, I guarantee it will leave an indelible impression. If you aren't committed to trying something new, however, I'd recommend passing on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Soundtrack for House of Leaves
Review: I've only just started reading House of Leaves and can't really give an accurate review, but I did want to note that Mark Danielewski's sister is Poe, whose cd Haunted is a companion piece to the novel. In fact, I only heard about the novel after buying the cd, and then grabbed the book when I spotted it at the library. If you've heard Poe's music, then you know that she's a talented musician with an incredible voice. Her first cd Hello is a must-have, and while Haunted is quite different, it's no less brilliant. If you liked the book, I recommend getting the cd as well.
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Summary: Labyrinths
Review: The Navidson Record is the "novel" Borges would have written, the only literary form sadly missing from his canon. Extremely playful and cerebral. One cannot help but conclude after reading HOUSE OF LEAVES that Zampano is Borges, and we are all Johnny Truant, the possessed reader trapped in a Borgesian alternative universe. A labyrinth, if you will.
Rating:
Summary: incredible!
Review: i'm only 31 pages into it, and i'm glued! buy this book, it is the most mentally stimulating, basically the best fictional literature i have ever read! absolutely amazing! (buy the way, get the hardcover. it's worth it.)
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