House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: A Book Review
Genre: Horror/ Suspense
This was not an easy read. Half the time I was clawing my hair out. Confusing (to say the least) I still have no answers and actually have more questions than when I started out reading. As such, I don’t really have a lot to talk about, especially since I am a hard neutral regarding this story so I am just going to give a few facts about it and leave the rest of it up to you.
- The book was entirely character driven with no clear idea of plot. As a result, the flow of the book felt natural in the sense that it felt very informal. This worked, however, because the story style ranged from professional articles to spoken-story in a matter of seconds. As such, the strong characters and the informality made for a good read simply because it seemed like no one knew what was going to happen next. You were literally listening to a friend reading these articles and becoming obcessed with them.
- Because of there being no plot, everything kinda was all over the place. There was no clear line. Again, however, this worked because of the spoken-story style being told. No one ever tells a story (through words) that goes ABCD, most people went telling a story go ABECGD and so forth. My point is, when telling people stories about ourselves is, we digress because sometimes we come to a point where we think more background information is needed or we need to go back and clarify something and so forth. It works. It was weird, but it worked.
- While I liked the story, I am unsure if I enjoyed it. Would I recommend this book to someone? Probably not. I wouldn’t go out of my way to at least. If someone mentions wanting to read a weird book that it could qualify under, I might bring it up, but nothing more than that. At the same time, however, I would not say that I disliked it or even that I regret reading it. More so, I am just… so completely confused by it that I can’t say I even have an opinion on it.
Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Writing: 10/10
Editor: 10/10
Total: 40/40
Title: House of Leaves
Author: Mark Z. Danielewski
Edition: 2nd Edition/ Paperback
Published: March 7, 2000
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 9780375703768
If you want to get it: Amazon; Barnes&Noble
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