House of Leaves

8 years. It took 8 years to finish this book. (Wow almost 8 years to the day, too...)

I started it. I put it down. I started again. I put it down again. Then finally I picked it up and finished it. I tried to read it all at once, but I couldn't give Johnny's narrative the attention it deserved when all I wanted to know about was the haunted house. So this time I read the Navidson Record first then went back and read Johnny's notes. The Navidson Record was great, it wasn't the horror I'd expected from other's reviews but it was unsettling in the best ways and made me fall in love with the ‎Ergodic genre all over again. The text illustrating how Navidson navigated the dark space of the house were my favorite parts of the book.

Tackling Johnny's narrative was another story. Some of his exposition in the beginning felt superfluous. Like why do I need to know out all these seemingly random sexual conquests?? But when he truly begins to break down you see the ties between Zampano, Johnny, Johnny's mother and a host of other narrators, may they be reliable or not.

It was a ride to say the least, and mostly enjoyable. The rating is a 4.5 because I'm sure I'll read it again, but without bouncing around, but there are parts that's just a slog to get through.