House of Leaves

Author: Mark Danielewski

Super weird and annoying book.

I was intrigued by the premise. A couple moves into a house, and discovers it is bigger on the inside than it should be/appears on the outside. And all sorts of weird things happen in it.

But the book is written from multiple perspectives. The primary perspective is this guy who is writing a scholarly analysis of the documentary that the person who moved into the house made about it. It is so unbelievably annoying to read, because he goes on long tangents about things (like you would in a scholarly analysis), like the use of lighting in filmmaking, or something like that.

Then there is this random other person, who is reading the scholarly analysis, and his life is unraveling in a similar way to the person who moved into the house. His storyline was so annoying (and gross) that I skipped it entirely.

The final, and shortest perspective is the freaking perspective that actually had me interested in the book. The people experiencing the house.

The book is all edgy, and does things like writes one word on one page, or squishes the text in the margins, to give you the same claustrophobic feeling while reading that the people in the house had, but it didn’t land for me.

Waste of time, don’t read.