This review is entirely human-written and contains no spoilers beyond the first few pages of the book.
House of Leaves is a famously weird fiction book from 2000 that, like other weird classics, many people want to have read. What's keeping them is 700 pages of confusing formatting, unclear narratives, and tedious subjects. What's drawing them in is that these are deliberate choices in pursuit of a very particular experience.
It is a complicated book to review because it's a matryoshka doll of stories. It contains:
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A Blair Witch-esque documentary film where a man moves into a creepy house that shifts its interior layout in impossible ways.
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A manuscript recounting and reviewing the documentary, referencing a whole academic field apparently dedicated solely to this single documentary.
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A book compiling the manuscript and adding copious amounts of unrelated personal stories in overly long footnotes.
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The physical book that you hold, containing the previous book with minor edits and extra appendixes. It's famous for "format screw", requiring you to flip pages back and forth and rotate the book (“ergodic”).
My thesis is that each of these layers presents an unconventional villain. Number two will surprise you. This review is split into one section per story layer.
The Documentary
The innermost story is of Will Navidson, famous photojournalist, moving into a new house with his family and meticulously documenting the process. Things quickly go sideways when he discovers that the house’s interior layout does not adhere to physics.
As a fan of rational fiction, this was immensely satisfying. Measurements with various techniques, bringing in experts in different fields. By making this process so grounded, the story feels infinitely creepier. If it was a short story, it would be one of my favorites.
Then the violations worsen, until dark endless hallways spawn and Navidson decides to turn his house moving documentary into a moving house documentary. The tone shifts into psychological horror. Expeditions are organized.
And here’s where we find our first villain. Readers speculate that the house itself is malevolent and was threatening the occupants. But the text is clear: the real evil is hiking. Pages and pages dedicated to walking, resting, and the proper management of all supplies. You might think I’m joking, and I am, but this is also a critique. The documentary story is where the bulk of the supernatural creepy stuff happens, but it holds back a little too much. It feels like a wasted opportunity.
This will be a recurring theme in this review. The book might have numerous interlocking parts, but the text is long enough that each part could have done more. The development is thin.
But do you know what was not thin? The freaking academic analysis.
The Freaking Academic Analysis
The second layer is a manuscript discussing the documentary. It describes in writing what the documentary supposedly depicts visually, then comments on it, adding background information and guessing at the psychological state of the characters.
This setup is already interesting, but what makes it shine is that it’s written in formal academic style. I suppose this is a divisive opinion, because it’s not the easiest style to read. Deliberately boring at points. But to me there’s something inherently fun in stilted descriptions of fantastical elements.
If this is now reminding you of the SCP Wiki, you’re not alone. Launched in 2008, it describes the containment of various supernatural phenomena, from the perspective of a large bureaucratic organization. And just like the SCP Wiki, House of Leaves also has its redactions, footnotes, and expedition reports. I can’t prove it, but I’d be surprised if there was no direct influence here. If you like one, it’s also a good sign you’d like the other.
The biggest difference is that House of Leaves pushes the academic register to ridiculous heights. It’s part of a universe where analysis of this documentary is an entire field of research. It’ll quote books entirely devoted to single scenes of the documentary. Trivial assertions come with rows of references. Mentions of conferences and schisms. Competing hypotheses, developed over years, on the interpretation of a character’s decision.
It is indeed ridiculous. Not in a sense of unrealistic, or badly written, but amusingly funny. This is noted in the story itself, and to me reads like a parody even in-universe. So the second villain we have is academic writing. You didn’t see that coming, did you? And again this is only half joking. I believe there’s enough source material to fully defend this interpretation, which is saying something in a book that leaves so much vague and unresolved.
And what was that about in-universe parody? Could the narrators in this book be so unreliable? Well, let me introduce you to someone.
That Guy
The third layer is the story of Johnny Truant, as told by Johnny Truant. He is supposed to be editing the manuscript, but he took the opportunity to wax poetically about his (mis)adventures in the footnotes. How is that possible, you might be asking. Wouldn’t that make the footnotes impossibly long, a reasonable person wonders.
Yes. His “footnotes” can take multiple pages, and they’re frequent. Readers have strong opinions about Johnny, and I’m part of that group.
Truant’s stories are also almost entirely unrelated to the documentary or even the manuscript he’s editing. They often involve hot women and drugs. The sex scenes are explicit, the prose is overly flowery, and you’ll get whiplash when you go back to the academic writing.
The reliability problems are obvious, which makes any plot development questionable. While reading about the documentary I was taking copious notes (more on that later), but when Johnny tells an “important childhood fact” I just shrug because none of it fits.
Overall I was not a fan of this guy and the stories he had to tell. But amidst the insufferable self-descriptions the villain was clear: loneliness. Poor Truant manages to be isolated even in crowds. I just wish I could care for his sexual escapades and purple prose.
The Physical Book
If the review so far sounded lukewarm for a supposed groundbreaking classic, you’d be right. Because what made this book famous is its formatting.
There’s the back-and-forth of following appendix references. The nested footnotes. How every occurrence of the word “house” is in blue (even the www.randomhouse.com address on the back!). Then there are whole sections where the text is squeezed, rotated, split, or crossed-out. Flipping through the book is trippy and an excellent conversation starter. Even the cover is too short for the pages (i.e., the book is bigger on the inside).
I’ll keep this section short to avoid spoiling the experience, but you get the idea.
The final villain is the reader. The book constantly teases that the experience could be so much more if only you paid more attention and found all the clues. Oh, is that a Greek letter sitting by itself on the corner of a page? If only you noted down where the other similar marks were…
The book could have been more radical; there are no physical holes in any pages, nor invisible ink, and you’re not asked to rip and burn sections. I don’t know if it would have improved the book, but it’s the kind of thought that crosses your mind after being exposed to so many creative uses of letters on paper. It’s deliciously contagious.
The version I have is “The Remastered Full-Color Edition”. There’s a cheaper two-color edition, but in a book where formatting is so important, I can’t recommend it. E-reader versions would be even worse.
Final Verdict
The Good: an excellent execution of “the creepy house that’s bigger on the inside”. And because of the formatting, reading the book is itself a memorable experience. It’s a classic for a reason.
The Bad: often too slow. The three stories are distinct and strange enough that you’re likely to dislike at least one of them.
The Ugly: it presents itself as a mystery or puzzle, but barely rewards close investigation. I took copious notes in the beginning, waiting for a moment where someone would call the dog by the wrong name and reveal themselves as an impostor from the dark hallways. Or building a timeline of Johnny’s life to identify the chronological order of his stories. Even the famous blue “house” is left unexplained. I counted just half a dozen real “secrets” that required (simple) cross-referencing or decoding, which is disappointingly few in a book of this shape, and they revealed nothing of importance. It reminds me of AI art, where a ton of details are presented, but you’re punished for paying too close attention.
That being said, overall I recommend House of Leaves with two unsurprising caveats. First, that the reader must be patient. It’s not a light or quick read. And second, that the reader must value new experiences, in an artistic sense.
If you can fulfill those requirements, this is a book that will stay in your mind for a long time. Hidden in the dark, growing when you’re not paying attention. Waiting for something. Say, do you like hiking?