Rating: 
Summary: Greatest literary hoodwinking of recent memory
Review: This overwrought piece of linguistic detritus is to the midge intellect what repetitive motion is to the autistic, which is to say diseased obsession over senseless activity: a masturbatory means to no end.
Enough to raise the hackles of legions of literary poseurs, I'm sure, but know that I realize Danielewski's project full well. I am not impressed. The postmodern movement in a nutshell: the fragments which Eliot shored against his ruin left scattered. Thus the futile project of arrangement becomes thematic. Danielewski's treatment is so ostensive as to approach banality (note very carefully what happens when the esoterica is removed: so goes the book; the prose, [bad]).
Moreover, Danielewski is laggard: Pynchon conducted this undertaking over a quarter-century prior to Outhouse of Leaves in Gravity's Rainbow, the center of the postmodern canon, and succeeded brilliantly. This considered, can one deny that not a little metaphorical plagiarism has taken place? Consider the central metaphores of both, Danielewski's house and Pynchon's rocket: essentially usurpations of reason serving as the nucleus of the aforementioned postmodern "action." However, to put it bluntly, Pynchon can Write, Danielewski cannot; the former our last great writer, the latter deserving of the pillory, though, to be fair, his crime is really that of all you ignoramuses out there buying wholesale cultural bankruptcy at the click of the mouse.
Rating: 
Summary: Unique storytelling
Review: At a first glance, just flipping through the pages of House of Leaves will have you saying, "What the f*#@ ?!?" Words are typed sideways, upsidedown, on top of each other... some pages are filled with only one word, and all other kinds of weird manners. All this weirdness was enough to spark my intregue to read this book. What you have here is a story within a story with a story. A tattoo-shop worker named Johnny Truant discovers the papers of a deceased blind man named Zampano. Sort of like "The Blair Witch Project", Zampano's papers discuss and analyze a documentary (that might not even exist) called "The Navidson Record". This documentary, which is the main storyline of the book, is about photojournalist Navidson and his family who discover their new house is not what it seems. A mysterious door pops up out of nowhere, containing a cold, dark hallway that stretches on for hundreds of miles inside. This hallway not only piques Navidson's curiosity and scares his familiy, but also threatens to tear their family apart. Throughout Zampano's paper, Johnny also puts his long footnotes in, in which he describes how this story is affecting his real life. He relates to us stories on how disturbed and detached he is becoming as he struggles to put Zampano's work together. Zampano's analysis tends to get a little boring and hard to read at times. He sometimes goes off into tangents on mythology and scientific stuff. His work reads like a research paper, which it's supposed to. Hundreds of footnotes are used for fictional and real sources. Some of the footnotes seem entirely pointless; there's one that goes something like: "The hallway did not have windows, furnishings, curtains; nor did it have plumbing, wallpaper, carpeting..." and it goes on and on for a few more pages. There are quite a few more footnotes along the same line, all of which makes you wanna bang your head against the wall. Where Zampano's paper does get interesting is whenever he's describing the action of the documentary. It's this plot that carries most of the book. Johnny's story does not have a lot to do with anything. You probably don't even have to read it if you don't want to. He spends his time waxing poetic on how he gets wasted and laid and eventually kinda nuts. One particular passage I loved was when he described having sex with one woman, comparing it to the forming of a dark language. It's really a beautiful metaphor. I loved the visual style of this book. Like a director using various camera shots to represent what's happening in the story, whenever the hallway is explored, the pattern of the words on the page start to reflect what is happening. As Navidson crawls through an increasingly tinier passage, the paragraphs get smaller, until their is only one line left. When it is discovered how vast the mysterious hallway really is, with multiple pathways to offer, the corresponding pages are divided into numerous sections, containing many footnotes (like the one I described above) facing all sorts of directions. This leaves you feeing lost and confused like the people in the story. The book kind of reminds me of DVD filled with special features and easter eggs. There's an appendix at the end of the book, containing related photographs, poetry, chapter titles, and the most entertaining of the bunch, letters from Johnny's mother. As a mental patient separated from Johnny during his childhood, her letters become increasingly more disturbing and creepy. Also, the book is filled with secrets; in one section, you can find the author's full name if you read every other letter. Also, a few lines coincide with lyrics from singer Poe's album "Haunted" (she happens to be the author's sister as well). What ties everybody's storyline together? Loneliness and the dissolution of family. To me, the hallway represents the growing fear and tension between the characters that threatens to isolate them. Almost of everybody in this story was lonely to me. Navidson and his long-time girlfriend, his brother, the explorer they recruited to investigate the hallway, and even Johnny, who tried to fill his emptiness with drugs and meaningless sex. Another common tie among many of the characters was that they were abandoned by their parents. The story mentions the mythological Minotaur throughout the story (the word is always crossed out and in red in my copy), whose own father abandoned him inside a labyrinth. All in all, this is a great read and a refreshingly creative way to tell the classic haunted house story.
Rating: 
Summary: great read
Review: at first the book seems unreadable. but if you stick it out the first capter, it becomes really easy to get into the flow. i have read the book four times now and every time i take something new away form the book.
Rating:
Summary: A riveting look into human psyche and descent into madness
Review: I first discovered this book about two years ago. I was interested in it because I owned the Poe album "Haunted" and a friend who also had that C.D. recommended the book. I didn't realize the impact it would have on my own mind. The story starts out slowly and simply with straightforward narratives and normal looking pages. As the story progresses, the writing, both style and layout, become more complex and confused. You find yourself unwilling to put the book down, frantically flipping through the short pages, your heart racing with fear for the explorers. This novel sucks you in and won't let go. You become aware of the dark places in your own life and, like Johnny Truant, you spend more and more time contemplating the meanings behind the text. So many emotional and intellectual issues are tied up in an insane bundle that you find it hard to disentangle yourself. Only you don't really want to. The darkness begins to swallow you and you can only wish it would happen faster so you can understand what is happening. This book is all about the darkness that permeates our lives and souls.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: Complex, interesting, dark and heavy, House of Leaves is not a book meant for the lazy readers. If you want a story focused on events instead of characterizations, plots instead of tones, easy-to-read events instead of having (literally) to skip white pages, go back and forth, turning the book upside down, etc. then don't even think about buying it. This work is a true work of art, and only few (VERY few) books published in the last decade will have such an impact on literature (and anyone who reads it, of course). The meaning of the book is truly inmmense and it has actually changed my mind about the way I used to look at my own house and what it meant to me. But that is personal.
Rating: 
Summary: It scared me!
Review: Wow! I read this book in one long session, and believe me, about 3/4 of the way through, you just don't know which way to turn the page to go forward! It is like reading an Escher painting. Stories within stories. . . symbols that turn out to be reality and reality that turns out to be symbols -- yikes! Don't read this unless you can handle a trip at least 5 and 1/2 minutes into your own psyche. Madness abounds. This is a haunted house story like none other (though the aftertaste is rather like "House on the Borderland"). And I thought my heart would break for Johnny Truant. I will not give any of the story away (you have to read it yourself! No helpful hints!). But this is definitely worth the trouble the book initially presents.
Rating:
Summary: I'm still haunted by this book...
Review: I read this book in August of last year, and I literally would not read it when I was by myself. I don't typically find myself being scared when I'm alone, nor do I usually feel threatened by darkness or large open (or closed) spaces, but this book made me think about all the "what if"'s. Now, you have to be very open minded when reading this book. It is very chaotic - not only by what is happening in the text, but the text itself - and it should be. I've seen the reviews where people criticized the way the text was formatted on the pages, but what I feel these people were neglecting is that the text itself was a reflection of the mood of the story at the time. The more stressful and insane the story got, so did the formatting.
To me, that's just pure genius.
I've read other stories that had the same feel to them - the whole stream-of-conscious writing style where the reader goes mad while the character in the story goes mad - but this book epitimized that writing technique. To summarize the whole story... it's a story about Johnny Truant, who, like his name, is a truant. He works in a tattoo parlor, does an array of drugs, and goes out partying, but he's really a smart guy and you wonder why he's doing it to himself. (which you find out in the footnotes and various ramblings) He ends up stealing a chest of papers from Zumpano after his death - I say stealing because Zumpano is found dead in his apartment... windows all blacked out and claw marks in the floor? He didn't really know Zumpano, but he watched him out in the courtyard with all the cats... and when the cats stopped coming, the mystery was hightened. Truant decides he's going to finish Zumpano's work... and then he's lead down the same path. He lives vicariously through the the footnotes that Zumpano's added to this documentary about the Navidson Files and soon, he's actually LIVING the nightmare he's trying to tell. It's facinating. And the HOUSE! The concept that there could be a door to a black whole of a world, where in reality, if you're on the other side, the door shouldn't even exist is just mind boggling! And, the fact that the space inside the door becomes more massive the more fearful, stressed, more panicked the people inside the house become.. it's literally like the house feeds on these people's emotions. It's great. Truly worth reading. Be prepared to be haunted.
Rating:
Summary: Put it under your pillow
Review: I had spotted this at the library and maybe ten times passed it up, but each time I flipped through it and read bits and pieces.
When I finally gathered up the balls and wanted to read it, it was checked out. I had to wait four weeks for it, and alas, it arrived.
What can you say? If you don't know anything about this book, that's good. Go into it with time and thought.
If you do know a thing or two about it already, there's no reason you haven't read it.
As the first words say, "This is not for you."
Rating:
Summary: sprial staircase into insanity
Review: Simply put, House of Leaves is a teriffic book. However, it is not for everyone. The book is extremly long, and at some points it does seem to drag on without a point. But, that is exactly the point. THERE IS NO POINT. It is up to the reader to figure out and decide what really happened. (If anyone has ever played the Silent Hill games, you could easilly compare the strange, bizarre-ness of this book to them.)
Danielewski has created a completly crazy and unbelievable world, where nothing is as it seems...when you can make sense of it's insanity. When and if you read this book, you must keep in mind that it doesn't make sense and it will either make you go crazy, or you will just fall in love with it. The book is as twisted as the labyrinth inside Will Navidson's house.
The book consumed a good 2 days of my life, and then many more afterwards as I tried to uncover just what it was all about. Keep an open mind.
Rating:
Summary: An experience
Review: That is the one way that I would describe this book...it is truly an experience. Once an avid horror movie and book fan, House of Leaves blew me away like nothing else. This book is like a movie, and academic work, and an addiction all in one. I truly became lost within the house, this book bringing me places I've never thought possible. If you are sick of reading and want to experience a book, pick this up. I guarantee you won't regret it.
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