Rating: 
Summary: Something Raw
Review: I can definately say I was surprised to see a mountain of negative reviews for this book, when I came to this page. Personally, I loved the book. The concept is phenomenal! The writing isn't shakespeare, but it never wanted to be! It's something raw, something dark and painful. It doesn't have the intricate plot of a Ludlum or Grisham book, but it has life and emotion, something lacking in most novels these days. This book is definately an experience. It's a poem, one that cannot be missed.
Rating: 
Summary: The journey is the thing, not the destination..
Review: If I can compare this book to anything, it's some bizarre paradoxical puzzle that isn't really meant to be solved. Once you get drawn deeper and deeper into its web of pages, the maze itself takes over; the point isn't to figure everything out and come to a neat ending anymore, but instead to enjoy and revel in the small oddities and the wealth of detail that make it so fiendishly complex in the first place. Danielewski doesn't just tell a story. He sets it as a nonexistent documentary film, which is the subject of an analytical manuscript, which itself becomes an unhealthy obsession for the fictional slacker who discovers it. It's a story within a story within a story, and while none of them individually are completely captivating, the way they're constructed and woven together is what makes the book ultimately so fascinating.. and frustrating.At its core, the central focus is a house that defies all laws of physics. This is the most gripping story, although it remains vague and mysterious to the end. The explorings become a scary blend of Blair-Witch-Project ambiguity and primal Lord-of-the-Flies insanity. The terror isn't mainly from the house itself, but from the changes the situation effects in the people inside. (Spooooky.) The manuscript couches the events in an obsessive array of footnotes, outside scholarly analyses, literary critiques, mythological references and randomly ascribed quotes.. and that's not counting the occasions where the whacked-out typesetting rides all over the pages like a madman's frantic scribblings gone out of control. Is it a brilliant correlation with the story or a cheaply contrived avant-garde gimmick to make the whole thing seem more fascinating & intelligent than it really is? Maybe both. Danielewski also finds a perverse joy in constructing pages on pages of footnotes; sometimes they're just long pointless lists, sometimes they're references to real quotes in real books, most often they're complete fabrications. Good thing they're easy to skim. Johnny Truant is the character who find this bizarre work, assembles it from its labyrinthine mishmosh of pages and notes, and submits it for publication. But his story is part of House of Leaves too; interspersed with his own observations and FYIs on the manuscript, there are occasional pages-long ramblings on the unraveling of his own mind as his work progresses. His life undergoes a gradual metamorphosis from post-adolescent fantasy to hallucinatory nightmare, and its subtle insidiousness can get positively chilling. These aren't the most gripping passages by any means, but the plain stream-of-consciousness style (though maddeningly juvenile at times) does make a refreshing change from the formal academic tone of the manuscript itself. Five stars for the scholars & analysts; two or three stars for fans of plain suspense/horror novels. I give four because it manages both those aspects pretty well, although they inevitably conflict with each other throughout. House of Leaves is much heavier than it needs to be (I'm talking in the mental sense, although it does make a big hefty tome also). It's hard to get into and ultimately harder to put down. The basic story of the house could have been done as a blockbuster-style action novel much more easily than this.. but although its layers and layout can make it one giant headache after another, they also distinguish it from most other stuff out there. Love it or hate it, it'll twist your mind into knots all the same.
Rating:
Summary: Must read
Review: In this dieing age of print this is one book you should run not walk to get. More an experience than anything else!
Rating: 
Summary: Expedition Aborted
Review: I made it halfway through Chapter 9 before bailing on this pretentious literary artefact. Every time the story seems to be going somewhere exciting, we're dumped into a maze (yeah, we *get* it already) of digressions and intrusions. At some point, the narrator's intrusions begin to read like Letters to Penthouse. It isn't offensive (that might have actually held my interest); it's just terribly banal. Every woman this guy meets is some kind of boring two-dimensional bang-doll. When something outwardly intriguing finally began happening with the main story, and I realized I didn't care, it was time for me to give up. It's not that there weren't some pay-offs along the way. The dusty discourse on echoes eventually ties into the story in a clever way. Maybe everything is in that vein and I'm giving up to soon. But giving up I am. May your exploration take you further than mine did.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste
Review: This book [is bad.] It's long and never takes you anywhere. There is no monster, no climax, no nothing. The appeal in the book is the way its written and a promise of a very creative and interesting story (text in all sorts of weird formats), but the story is virtualy nonexistent which makes it a waste to read despite the creative layout. Again, there is no event just a house that is huge and full of absolutely nothing. Don't waste your time or money. There are many other good books I could have read instead...
Rating: 
Summary: haven't we heard enough about this already?
Review: All right, a book with footnotes, lists that don't mean anything, words printed upside down, sideways, and so forth. A film that doesn't exist, a house bigger inside than it is outside...is this anything new? What does it accomplish anymore? It's somewhat creative, to be sure, but overall it's just the rambling, purposeless creation of yet another sheep following the flock. (Edit, 2/19/04: my critique of this book in terms of it "not being anything new" was somewhat misguided--I still see very little of interest in it, but obviously it has a right to exist, and people have a right to read it.)
Rating:
Summary: Exquisite
Review: This book will take you some time to read, but that time is necessary for you to understand the point of the novel. Time and space have no relation to reality, human relationships go under the microscope, and you are utterly sucked in. This novel changes the face of the novel as we know it and lets the artist and the author come together as one. You will examine this book again and again, come to some startling conclusions, read it once again, and find yourself nearer to the truth, whatever it may be.
When I was introduced to this novel, by word of mouth, I was given no more information other than reaction. I give as much in return, if you want someone to explain get the cliffnotes.
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Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Tale of Genius In a League of Its Own
Review: I've picked up this book a million times and have been mesmerized by flipping through the pages. Some pages only have a few words, others are written upside down, others have inset squares of blue. An appendix has strange pictures, sketchings, and writings. The cover itself contains a strange collage. The book looks disturbing and at the same time enticing. So, when I found it at a used book sale for next to nothing, I had to get it. And boy was I in for a wild adventure! This is the type of book that you can get lost in -- really get lost in. Maybe you'll never make it back out quite the same way as when you entered. So the story begins. Johnny goes plundering through the belongings of a dead blind man and stumbles upon a pile of papers. The papers appear to be research collected about a film documentary of a house that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. It documents the journey made into the dark labyrinth of the house and the affects it had on the people who ventured into it.² Johnny's life becomes a wild roller coaster ride as he reads these papers. Although he can't find any proof that the "house on Ash Tree Lane" and it's "five-minute hallway" ever really existed, he gets caught up in its power. HOUSE OF LEAVES is a haunting tale of genius and not a story quickly forgotten. You'll probably never find another book even remotely like it.
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²The book itself is written as a labyrinth through the use of footnootes and creative word placement. The footnotes take you through twists and turns and lead you to dead ends and to satisfying surprises.
Rating:
Summary: Literary genius.
Review: Because Danielewski has melded a horror story onto a romance, filtered it through an explication of aesthetics, and plunked it all in a box of mathematical impossibility. In a sense, he's going after the world. One footnote, for example, stretches on for page after page, merely listing names of architects from the past several hundred years. The author has simultaneously cemented his story in the real world and thrown the entirety of the world onto the reader, in a sense daring you to try to absorb and comprehend everything. "House of Leaves" reminds you how much you don't know -- which just adds to the horror that Danielewski wants you to feel.
To tell his story, Danielewski uses a number of typefaces to identify different authors and a variety of typesetting effects (a là e. e. cummings, Ronald Sukenick, et al.) to place you more deeply within the story. He has footnotes all over the place, multiple appendices, collages, two-color text (yes, the title of the book is indeed [pretend "House" is colored blue] "House of Leaves"), even an index, for crying out loud. If you feel the need to see which pages the words "hair" or "melon" appear on, you'll be set.
I know, I know, the book probably sounds like a grab bag of gimmicks, a post-modern stew of pretense that's all style over substance. Don't feel that way. Do yourself a favor and buy, beg, or borrow this book, this "House of Leaves" that took 10 years to build. Don't flip through it, though; force yourself to start at the beginning and hand the reins over to Danielewski. He knows what he's doing. (Also read Chuck Palahniuik books, if you read him instead of House of Leaves, at least your getting closer to hitting bottom [the only place to be].)
Rating:
Summary: try paul auster's new york trilogy
Review: I read this book last week and found it quite engaging at times; it was very good, but not great. At times it felt like Mark D. was trying too hard, and making the reader try hard too (not that there's anything wrong with that). Before you read this book, I'd highly recommend Paul Auster's New York Trilogy instead. Check out its reviews on amazon to get more details about it. What House of Leaves does (or perhaps tries to do) in over 600 pages (many of them blank or with only a few words) is done in less than 350 by Auster. And Auster's writing is just so much better--a better read, deceptively simple because of its fluid style, and understated. Mark D's style is clunky and way too contrived at times. Still, House of Leaves is a worthwhile read--still 4 stars-- just check out the master first: Paul Auster.
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