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Book Review of House of Leaves

House of Leaves
myhotstylist avatar reviewed BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN on
Helpful Score: 13


took me 6 months to finish but it was well worth it. I wished they would make a movie out of it. Its an amazing book. It changes the way you read novels, and does to closets what "psycho" did to showers. A great read. Everyone should experience House of Leaves.

Basic Story:
A party animal, drug using, tattoo artist finds a novel written by a blind man that died. He types it up to publish and gives the blind man the credit for it. The novel is about a man whos house is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. A closet appears from nowhere and it leads into a vast void dark place that appears to be a mansion within the house. It has stairwells that groan, a spiral staircase that goes down forever, long winding hallways with hundreds of empty rooms, and its all pitch black. They make several trips in there to explore it, and get lost for days at a time.

The books jumps back and forth between the man typing the novel and the novel story itself. The man typing the novel ultimately goes insane.

There are end notes, pages printed backwards (need a mirror to read), some parts with one or two words per page, pages with print in sprial form. Even the end notes have end notes. Some end notes are 2-10 pages long, they reveal more of the story, so dont skip them! All of the words "house" are printed in blue text.

This is a truely one of a kind book! Anyone who is a fan of the song by "Poe" called "Hey Pretty" will appreciate the book especially on page 88, where the spoken words of her song are printed. MArk Danieleski is Poe's brother! The book he wrote inspired her song! ... Kyrie suggested we go for a drive in her new 2 door BMW coupe...... we slipped into her bucket seats and she took over from there....

Another neat aspect of the story, is the writers' mother, who is locked up in a looney bin. She writes him letters, which can be decoded (by you the reader) to reveal a secret message shes trying to send to him. It was truely one of the most disturbing messages Ive ever read. I wont tell you what its about, so you'll just have to see for yourself. These letters also spawned the second book by Mark Danielewski, called The Whalestoe Letters

I highly suggest this book to anyone over the age of 18. Contains adult language and a lot of adult content. But like I said, its a great book, Definitely a keeper IMO. Even though its been almost 10 years since i read this book, I will never forget it, and neither will you..........