A review by etienne02
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

5.0

This was fantastic! Less complex than I thought it would be. You will need focus and mind awareness to really read it, but if you a good reader don't be intimidate by it like I was, once you pick the way the book is builder, it's very readable.

I would be so curious to have a talk with the author to let him explain how he intent the message to be understand because there is many levels in this book and I think different way to interpret it. But overall, for me at least, it was a story of sadness, grief, fear, madness, insanity, obsession and passion. All that is intricated in a very unique construction. Don't read in on ebook and don't even search for an audiobook, this book need to be read on paper, it will be part of the story and the format is a much important as the content itself.

It remind me of Lovecraft horror in some way, because even if now-a-days people seem to focus about the cosmic horror part of Lovecraft works, Lovecraft essentially write on madness, on seeing, discovering or being in contact with something so terrible than you don't get out sane, whole, or intact. And this book has a lot of that. I've seem some seeing resemblance with Inception, and I agree with the multiple level of story inside a story. After all the book is a book, about a book, which is about a movie.

The darkness it has, the darkness it speaks of, is really interesting and worth taking sometime to think about it and even with the size and energy needed to go through it, this is a book I would definitely love to reread some day.

If you love horror, madness, experimental literature and want something unique and different, the House of Leaves is something you should seriously consider reading!