Unpopular opinion time. House of leaves gets 5 stars for unique presentation and 2 stars for story line. To unravel the crazy that is this book I watched many videos and read many more theories. We begin before the introduction where the page reads "This is not for you." Honestly gave me chills. I figured this book was not for my eyes or any others only to later understand it as this is not for you because double meanings and decoding messages are above what your brain can handle.

So there in was my biggest issue. This book was simply not for me. Not that it wasn't mind bending, unique, and disturbing. It's just not something I couldn't appreciate fully. For example I read a review that mentioned the different angles of text was to immerse the reader in the goings on and also set the pace. Which I thought was really interesting and spooky and it did draw me in but I often and I mean often got derailed by footnotes. So I could only immerse myself a few seconds at a time.

The whole story together with the right reader I think would be amazing. Someone who is obsessive over the hidden details. Really the layout and how each experience for each reader is different was well done. And it is an experience. There are different ways to read this different was to interpret. I really wished I could have been one of those people.

Also I figured the text placement and the ramblings were to make me crazy in return. Just didn't quite work. It bored me making me want to procrastinate and do anything but finish this book. The text was so weirdly done I also found my self starting the same sentence two to three times. At one point I was freakishly caught unaware when I skipped a passage rambling about space or echos or some junk and the author called me on it.

Another review and even video stated a book about a man who decends into insanity. I was hoping they wasn't talking about Truant because his point of few was like listening to someone on acid. Now confession time after a while I just completely skipped his story altogether and felt like I missed nothing.

What throughly killed if for me though was that I was drug through so much nonsense that the spook factor was gone. And in hindsight it was scarey. At times I felt the characters talking to me or describing something that could be in my very room. The atmosphere was cold and dank but the only passages I enjoyed where Navidson's family and the explorations of the house. The surroundings were very easy to picture but with all the babble it wasn't easy picturing each characters which was a shame.

House of Leaves - Likewise Book Reviews

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