I think the mystery of the book is fantastic. It confuses you, challenges you to look deeper, it's satisfying to read and discover what may or may not be going on. I really like the way it's presented, both in terms of the story itself and the pages. In a literal sense, the layout of the book is indeed a maze or labyrinth that I've had to go through. It's not as dense or difficult as I imagined it might be, so that's great as well.

While I don't have a definitive clue whether Zampano, Johnny, Pelafina, or some other unknown character wrote the book in-universe, I do enjoy the theories. I was exposed to the games Remedy made before I started reading the book, and I find it just as interesting to think about the inner workings of House of Leaves as their games. (I also recall reading that Remedy was inspired by the book and featured one of Poe's related songs in Alan Wake 1.) There's so many layers upon layers to sift through and so many things that either aren't explained or are contradictory, it's both mind-boggling and challenging to figure out what does or doesn't make sense. Once you start putting pisces together, there's a twist that makes the puzzle fall apart. And I've heard that it's kind of the point about both.

Overall, I'd put this in with some of my favorite books, even if there's things I've missed. There's always time to put in a second read or pour over details I might not have noticed, since this first time was mainly to understand the overall story for myself which I kinda do and don't. I'm very glad I bought this book and was able to semi-understand it. Mark Z. Danielewski is a wild author and House of Leaves is a very wild book.