House of Houses

by Kevin L. Donihe

"This is perhaps the weirdest book that anyone has ever written, or will ever write. Donihe is the best kept secret of the bizarro fiction genre." - Carlton Mellick III, author of Adolf in Wonderland There once was an odd reclusive little man who was in love with his house. He loved this house not in the way that normal people love their homes. His was a more intimate love, like the love between two humans. He loved his house so much that he asked it to marry him, and he believed that his house happily replied with a yes. Unfortunately, their love was to be torn apart the day before their wedding, on the day of the great house holocaust. On this day, every house in the world collapsed for no explainable reason. It was as if they killed themselves, and took many of their occupants with them. Distraught and despairing over the death of his fiancée, this man must go on a quest to find out what happened to his beloved home. On his He will meet Tony, a self-declared superhero, who looks kind of like a black Man-At-Arms from the old He-Man cartoons and claims to protect the world from quasi-dimensional psychopomps with his powerful sexpounding abilities. He will meet Manhaus, who seems to be part man and part house. And, finally, he will venture to House Heaven, a world where houses live inside of bigger houses made of people.

Genres: Bizarro Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Novels, Science Fiction

172 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Kevin L. Donihe is one of the originators of the Bizarro Fiction literary movement. He is the author of the Wonderland Award-winning novels HOUSE OF HOUSES and SPACE WALRUS, among other books published by seminal Bizarro publisher Eraserhead Press. He was also the editor of the horror anthology series BARE BONE for Raw Dog Screaming Press. His work has appeared in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF LEGAL THRILLERS and John Skipp's PSYCHOS: SERIAL KILLERS, DEPRAVED MADMEN, AND THE CRIMINALLY INSANE. Hailing from the mountains of Tennessee, he now lives in Astoria, OR.

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carlos is a smitten man.  He is deeply and monogamously in love with his house, Helen.  They are to wed, but before they can consummate their relationship (imagine, if you will, a literal hole in the wall), Helen and the house community die.  It's as if the houses have committed mass suicide, fallen and decomposing.  Distraught, Carlos seeks to find the cause of this epidemic.  Along the way he befriends R'yony, Protector of the Neighborhood and one mean sexpounder (a superhero has to serve and protect in any way possible).  In his quest, Carlos witnesses surreal landscapes and manic, self-proclaimed street preachers.  Finally, he meets Manhaus, a being that appears to be part human and part house.  Manhaus guides Carlos through the nether regions, where he is rebirthed by the House Mother and finds himself in House Heaven.  Here, the houses rule, and humans are used for labor and as byproducts.  Carlos' experiences in this afterlife for houses (and lowly humans) are brutal.  After being transformed into a well-muscled construction worker (one of few perks), he toils for the houses and their puppet-like guards.  But Carlos is still a man on a mission, and his love for Helen burns strongly in his heart.  Does this story sound difficult to relate to?  It's really not.  Once you become familiar with the house rules, it all makes bizarre sense.  The essence of this tale is a mixture of true love, raw determination and the dogged tenacity of the human spirit.  Once you meet Carlos, you will never be the same. 

[Danger]

Upon finishing this book, I attempted to develop a relationship with my own house. My girlfriend got all uptight about the cum stains I was leaving all over the walls and furniture. I tried to explain to her the power of good literature, but then Jersey Shore came on and we both got distracted. To summarize, this book is awesome. One of the best endings in the history of the written word. Read it or your house will collapse on you.

10/17/2022 - reread House of Houses, over a decade after my first introduction to it, and happy to report that it still holds up as one of the most nightmarish and audaciously weird examples of Bizarro literature out there. Donihe is such an original and talented writer, and for me, this remains not only his best book, but one of my favorite books by any writer.

[Seb · Rating 4 out of 5]

House of Houses is without a doubt one of the weirdest books I've ever read (and that's saying a lot, considering the books I usually read).

In a way, being this crazy is what you expect from a Bizarro story, so it should get high marks. In another way, I felt something missing at the end: the lack of humanity in the characters.

This book is hard to summarize and rate. If I stick to the Bizarro for Bizarro thinking part of this review, it's an easy five stars. If I listen to myself, which I will, it's not.

This book is highly dense. It contains a looot of stuff and you're jumping from one to another, restlessly but it's not rushed and it works. However, the characters lack depth and that's the reason why House of Houses doesn't get full marks, but a well-deserved four.

[Nicole Cushing · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're familiar with some of Donihe's earlier work (his novella, THE GREATEST FUCKING MOMENT IN SPORTS, appears in the "orange" version of THE BIZARRO STARTER KIT) you know that he's a fine satirist. But HOUSE OF HOUSES shows that satire isn't the only sandbox Donihe plays in...he also has a staggering, absurd imagination that will make you think, squirm, and laugh all at the same time

Books like HOUSE OF HOUSES are one of the reasons I love bizarro fiction. Bizarro gives the reader an unparalleled entertainment experience. Sure, you can find weird shit out there on film (Jodorowsky) or on television (Adult Swim Cartoons), but -- for me -- fiction is the only vehicle that takes a plot and digs past my menanges and into the rotten Martian cauliflower which is my brain!

Don't get me wrong, I love films like HOLY MOUNTAIN...It's just that, in bizarro fiction, the weird isn't just given to me on a silver platter. It's not dumbed-down weird...no, it's weird that I get to construct in my head with the help of the words on the page.

If you love bizarro, you will probably love HOUSE OF HOUSES and if you haven't yet read bizarro HOUSE OF HOUSES is probably not a bad place to start.

This book was a deserving winner of the Wonderland Book Award (Bizarro's answer to the Hugos, Nebulas, Stokers, etc.) for best novel of 2008. Read it and find out why!

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bizarre vision of someone's afterlife in which becoming a house is a stage. The other rules and circumstances seem rather arbitrarily selected. The theme or point of relating the story to a reader never becomes clear to me. The vision of the afterlife is too absurd to be taken seriously or even bear serious discussion in a review like this one. However, the story hangs together because of Donihe's consistency in staying within his own rules and his adherence to basic story structure. He has a plot that he follows beginning through middle to end as Carlos ages about 500 years in his afterlife.

So, there are only five characters in this novel. In order of introduction, they are Harold, the neighbor our protagonist doesn't care for, but then later on finds that he misses.

Helen, the name of the house. She is the love interest, especially later on when the protagonist starts to take on house features. This name is well selected. There's the Greek Helen who was so beautiful she launched a thousand ships. But Helen also sounds like both Hell and Heaven, and this story is about the afterlife.

Carlos, the protagonist. He is easy for us to identify with. Well, except for that house love thing. I never do get what's up with that. As a protagonist, it's hard to figure out what he's after most of the book. I mean, what his ultimate goal is. He just seems like he's about increasing his comfort level from one minute to the next, and not much else. Hard to root for a guy like this.

There's Tony, name changed later to R'yony but pronounced Tony still, for no rhyme or reason. That's why I say there are some bothersome random elements to this book not to my liking. R'yony is a black superhero of sorts with powers to sexpound enemies into oblivion, and he has heat vision which does the same thing. That first is an unfortunate power to attribute to a black man--racial stereotype much? We never really get to know much about his angle, what or who he is.

The last character is Manhaus, the villain of the story. He is aptly named in that he seems part man, more part house. It's strange that he started out the story as a bus driver.

Although none of these characters are deeply developed--we never truly know what motivates any of them, for example--I don't think making them deep is something Donihe is attempting. Lovecraft's characters are seldom deep either. It's the fantastic situations they're in together that makes this story, to the extent we have a real story at all. It still seems to me like an arbitrary portrayal of an implausible afterlife, one that barely hangs together because of Donihe's adherence to story structure.

I can recommend this read for lovers of bizarro fiction. I doubt its appeal could be broader though.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This being a bizzarro book, I shall offer a somewhat bizarre review. This is because I liked the book, but not the story.

First of all, the story itself is interesting, and full of symbolism. All the houses in the world die, and a man who truly loved his house decides to venture into a brave new world to find out why.

However, the first problem is that the author many times writes description that aren't just hard to visualize, but which may in fact, be impossible to imagine. At times like this, I found myself instead imagining the writer laughing at me, with foam gloved hands on his puppet hips, laughing while he says, "Haha, you stupid reader. There is no way for you to see this scene."

I tried! I really tried. But I couldn't see about three quarters of the book. My attempts to imagine puppet houses kept falling apart with lines like "he pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket," or, "She had blonde hair." I can see a house, OR a puppet, but not a house puppet. Maybe I'm a retard, but I can't. Sorry.

The other problem is that the symbolism is never explored much. In fact, all of the symbolism seems lost on the narrator, Carlos, who quickly wanders away from what could be very deep thoughts. A good example is early on, where a neighborhood is filled with people who have painted themselves and attempted to stand in place of their missing homes. One house declares "I live inside me, therefore, I am a house."

This is fucking brilliant, and if it had been explored, then or at any time later in the book, it would have improved the story greatly. Instead, Carlos rips a chunk of the man's scalp off and tells all the other "houses" to shut up. And the metaphor is never explored again.

Instead of exploring the brilliant symbols that he's come up with, the writer instead goes for really old pop culture references. The houses are killing humans and turning them into Soylent Green bricks. (And food products too, although we're told that houses have no need for food) The house puppets are compared to characters from a Sid and Marty Croft show. And the ending is very much a Orwellian knockoff similar to Animal Farm. "They're us, we're them."

Don't get me wrong. The story is interesting, but there's so much potential here in the symbolism that's wasted. It's like walking into a half completed house, and imagining what it would have been like, if only the carpenter had put more effort into the construction. You know the potential is there, but you can't truly imagine it, for the flaws you see in front of you.

[Christy Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second romantic book I've read about an objectophile in love with a house. This one is like the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.

[Dustin Reade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rides the happy champion all the way to House-World. If that doesnt make sense but you would like it too, read this amazing book now!

[Nurse Nightmare · Rating 3 out of 5]

My second bizzaro book, no intense gore or horror but very different. This author must be on some strong shit to write such a weird and wonderful tale...
almost reminded me of reading a David Wong book but much shorter...
I had a hard time with some of the storyline jumping a little too quickly from being on earth to on a bus then into house heaven, this should have taken more time to really explore and go above and beyond to get the mind really blown with strangeness...
Definitely a different type of read to your run of the mill novels, glad I took the time to read it but wasn’t 5 stars for me...

[Mike Kleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carlos, the narrator, is a self-proclaimed recluse who is in love with Helen, his house. Normally, this would not be a problem save for the fact that Carlos considers his house a human being, so much that he gets married to Helen. The problem arises a day after the marriage, when Carlos awakes to find Helen, as well as the rest of the houses in the neighborhood, collapsed. Looking for answers, Carlos bumps into Tony (also spelled R'yony,) a self-proclaimed superhero who just so happens to have an oversized member capable of "sexpounding" quasi-dimensional psychopomps into submission. As the two traverse the locale formerly known as Carlos' neighborhood, they encounter a man who answers to the name Manhaus. Apparently, Manhaus shares characteristics similar to those of both houses and humans, making him quite a unique character.

Manhaus eventually reveals himself as the interlocutor for "House Heaven" (the place where houses go when they die) and invites both Carlos and Tony to "House Heaven" as a "term of endearment" for their unreciprocated love toward houses. As the story progresses, Carlos and Tony quickly realize that "House Heaven" was designed specifically for houses, and not humans. As Carlos faces challenges one would only face in "House Heaven," HOUSE OF HOUSES manages to create a surreal atmosphere one could only find in a Kevin Donihe book. Houses replace humans in "House Heaven" and humans become houses. Initially, HOUSE OF HOUSES read like an overextended short story with brief plot elements but as the story evolved, it quickly managed to delve into a stark reality, only Kevin Donihe could reproduce. HOUSE OF HOUSES will make you feel sorry for your house and any superheroes you might know. As Carlton Mellick III said, "Donihe is the best kept secret of the bizarro fiction genre." After reading HOUSE OF HOUSES, you will never look at a house the same way twice.

[Andersen Prunty · Rating 5 out of 5]

In HOUSE OF HOUSES, author Kevin L. Donihe has hit his stride. The plot, a man falling in love with his house, seems almost too gimmicky to work over the course of a 100-plus page novel, but Donihe pulls it off with generous doses of surrealism, humor, and even something like house spirituality. The narrator, Carlos, begins his story by waking up to find his house collapsed around him. Naturally, he's confused. When he is finally able to escape the ruins, he finds a neighborhood greatly changed and a new life filled with loss and regret. Because Carlos didn't just live in his house, he loved his house. He was planning on marrying his house (whose name is Helen). He had even kept himself virginal, saving it for their wedding night. He had drilled a hole in her wall in preparation for this. Now she's gone. Once out of the house he meets Tony, a neighborhood guardian who looks kind of like a black Man-At-Arms from the He-Man cartoons. Tony introduces Carlos to "quasi-dimensional psychopomps" and his defense mechanism, "sexpounding." Sound weird? It gets weirder. Carlos enters a world, House Heaven, a polarized version of his normal world. House Heaven is run by a cruel tyrant named Manhaus, who seems to be part man and part house. Will Carlos be able to locate Helen's spirit body and escape?

Donihe surprised me on nearly every page of this book. It starts out as something that sounds like a joke, becomes an exploration (through the examination of house metaphysics and politics) of the human spirit and how it is dampened, and ends up being something rather sensitive and poignant.

[Greg B · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5 stars, really.

Of the four bizarro books I purchased during the Bizarro Bonanza this winter (the others: Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You, The Last Final Girl, Letters to Wendy's), this is by FAR the strangest and most deserving of the 'bizarro' label. Part travelogue on acid, part tortured housing crisis allegory, part Orwellian fable, it feels like there should be a law of physics preventing a writer from fitting THIS MUCH weirdness into a 160-page frame. Lovestruck Carlos is about to consummate his marriage with his house (who he has named Helen) when a terrible disaster kills all houses on Earth, dumping civilization into chaos and barbarism. With the help of the mysterious half-man, half-house drifter Manhaus (seriously, try saying his name in a heavy german accent, it's hilarious), he ascends to House Heaven to find his deceased love. There's lots of man-on-house sex. And house-on-house sex. And house-on-house-made-of-bricks-made-of-people sex, which is like some 11th-dimensional chess shit. But in House Heaven, Carlos finds a totalitarian pro-house, anti-human regime where his kind are used for slave labor and Manhaus has assumed a Big Brother-esque persona. I didn't expect a novel that's largely about a dude lusting after his house and his friend who rapes "sexpounds" ghosts to suddenly become 1984 with evil sentient houses, but whaddya know, it's surpringly poignant. House of Houses should be required reading for anyone buying their first home, or anyone who gets a weird thrill from entering the one they have through the back door.

[Anita Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes bizarro harbors weaker writers whose extravagant imaginations make up for a lack of skill, and that isn’t necessarily a criticism. I feel some of the most admired writers, Tolkien for instance, could tell a unique story but were not so amazing technically. This is not the case with Donihe. His words are well-chosen, his plot familiar yet bizarre, and his treatment of characters absorbing and interesting. The transformation of Carlos, from hopeful lover to quest-taker to mentally defeated cog in a brutal machine, is what makes this book so superior to many of the books I have read recently, including mainstream novels. It is no small feat to make a character so sympathetic and understandable in the midst of the chaos Donihe creates. So the bulk of this discussion/review will be me recounting passages in which Donihe makes us understand the mind of a man who loves his home like a wife and who descends into incredible, frightening and violent situations. Read the rest of my review here.

[G. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the short list of Bizarro books that I would truly consider classics that not only define but also transcend the genre, this is close to the top. Kevin L. Donihe is a hero, and while not completely unsung, I feel his greatness sometimes gets overshadowed when people discuss the extremity and insanity of the Bizarro scene. Maybe not the flashiest or grittiest or grossest writer in the scene, but he's one of the most balanced and unique voices. What shines through in this work is how authentically weird Donihe's aesthetic really is. A man who falls in love with his house. Then all the houses in the world commit suicide and go to house heaven. A superhero that protects the world from interdimensional monsters who looks like a Black Man-at-Arms. Sid and Marty Krofft-esque puppet avatars. Houses for houses made out of people. It all flows so naturally from one bit to the next.

The ending is one of the biggest bummers ever, but in a natural and satisfying way, like awkward sex with a really hot stranger. I recommend sex with this book always.

[Pedro Proença · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, it reminded me of Dante's Divine Comedy. By the end, it was more like 1984.

Top 5 Bizarro books I've ever read, easily.

[Nick Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.” (Pahliniuk)
In the case of this book, it’s probably your mind that needs to be lost to really gain an appreciation of the moral of this story. Bizarre fiction can be very polarizing, and it’s easy to dismiss work like this as an author just throwing weird at a page to shock the reader. But if you can really free your mind and absorb the absolutely fucked up universe in this story, you can see the constructs of society break down to reveal our human needs don’t really differ than those of any animal, or even a sentient house.
This book is full of insightful allegory on our arrogance of mankind, and the disposable behaviors we exhibit, as well as the nature of love, society, and division between labor and corporate overlords.
If you’re expecting a book to spoon feed bestseller plot lines in a non-offensive manner, then stick to the grocery store paperbacks. But if you want a challenging, hilarious, and insightful piece that uses your brains to make its jelly-mold, this is a great quick-read worth every minute.

[Chris Bowsman · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite type of weird fiction that which involves a normal, somewhat boring character to whom strange things happen. I'm also a sucker for anthropomorphic stories. Combine these elements and tack on a spectacular ending and you get HOUSE OF HOUSES.

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

First things first, there are lots of consent warnings needed and there's some disappointing racial stereotyping.

So, the book follows a reclusive wallflower that was romantically in love with his house. All the houses in the world seem to have completely fallen apart and collapsed in on themselves into some organic biomass and the hero (?) journey begins. It initially presents itself as a mystery, but throws that in the garbage quickly and devolves into a serialized sequence of "weird stuff that happens to a guy."

There's no character development. There are not really any goals. I guess there is something of a plot although the reasons and motivations for why stuff happens are never addressed.

The whole book felt like it was written on acid, which I do have an appreciation for. It accomplishes its goal of being purposefully bizarre. I wouldn't say that it’s good, but it wasn’t boring and was successful at being absurd.

A bunch of wild stuff happens, and it had some fun imagery and kooky ideas. But it also really suffers from id impulsiveness where it frequently feels like the "story" was created through a dada party exercise or a substitute word game like Madlibs.

What's shitty is the inclusion of a literal magical black guy to fulfill the tired trope of emotional guide, who's only defining feature is a giant phallus that is used as a weapon. It pretty much prevents me from recommending this to anyone.

As a side note, can authors please stop using obscure pop culture references as the shorthand for descriptions, especially when those are the only description that is used. I mean, I know what Lidsville and Man-at-Arms are, but at best it's a lazy shortcut, at worst it's confusing and dates your work.

Anyway, I feel like this book might have had something to say, but I failed to find the message.

[Andy Gooding-Call · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eerie, poignant, and ultimately brooding exploration of work and class. Carlos is a man who transgressively loves his house, only for his house - indeed, all houses - to ascend to House Heaven. What follows is a man’s transformation into an object. Excellent writing.

[Caspar Vega · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarro version of 1984.

[Tyler Cifelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, that was a weird ride.

[Ashlee · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I live in myself, do I not? That makes me sort of a house."

Truly bizarre. The soundtrack to this book is probably just Children of God by AJJ on repeat.

[Dante Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

As all creations that matter do, this book will make you a more difficult person to talk to.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm wavering a bit as to whether to give this book a 3 or a 4. I opted for 4 stars because I have a true soft spot for the author but the book was probably closer to a 3.5. The reason for this is that I didn't feel the moral of the story read all that clearly for me. The book is about a man who falls in love with his house and plans to marry her. However, the day before they are to be wed this world, the world we would recognize, dies in a haze of green skies, red plant-life, phantom trees, and melting houses. The few humans who do survive make their way to a mansion which is in town for one day only. Passing into the mansion transports them into a strange world where they are tested to see if they are suitable for House Heaven. But when our protagonist reaches House Heaven he is immediately transformed for slave labor and sent off with the other humans to build homes for the houses under the watch of malevolent and sexually deviant guards. One can feel the tones of inhumanity insinuating a moral but I struggle to get a clear vision on what that moral is, especially when I take into account the way the book ends. (I'll not go into that to avoid spoilers on the off chance anyone reads this review.)

The world building and characters were interesting and engaging. I read this book cover to cover in one sitting, feeling immersed in the strangeness described to me. At no point did it feel unconvincing that houses were interacting with humans as overlords and the sense of love the protagonist felt for his house was well portrayed. I was even left feeling a desire for a sequel to delve deeper into the world of House Heaven, perhaps from the POV of one of the houses. There were a few paragraphs which hinted at a greater plot of corrupt politics behind the main story which could make for another interesting tale. And, while I doubt the author will chose to go on with this story line, I would definitely be pre-ordering a copy should he write more on House Heaven.

If you're new to Bizarro fiction or Kevin L. Donihe, I would recommend The Greatest Fucking Moment in Sports over House of Houses. If you're looking for Bizarro romance involving inanimate objects, I recommend Wall of Kiss by Gina Ranalli.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful prose is on display here, but that should come as no surprise to those who know Kevin Donihe as an editor first and author second. This is the book that netted Kevin his first Wonderland Book Award at Bizarrocon. In November 2013, he captured his second for Space Walrus, which I also gave a glowing review.

House of Houses concerns a loner named Carlos who is so committed to the upkeep of his house that he marries it, calls it Helen. From all outward signs as we read, it appears that he is a bit misguided and eccentric in his belief that Helen is actually a sentient life form. At least, it appears so until he starts noticing her decay. We're not just talking dryrot or mold, either. There's mucus and everything as Helen flatlines!

Carlos sets out into the cruel world he'd abandoned in order to find answers. Houses everywhere are dying. He meets up with R'Hony, or Tony in our language, to brave this depressing new Helenless world. What he finds is that there is a heaven, but it's one where humans are slaves and houses live within even bigger houses built by said humans. He reconciles with his love, but just as soon as he has his heart's desire, the devilish Manhaus threatens to snatch Helen and Carlos' newfound fortunes away.

This is a common thread throughout Kevin Donihe's work, the consistent feeling of coming up short, the 'ohhhh, so close, but just out of reach' feeling that originated with the Icarus myth. There is a tremendous gulf of melancholy in Kevin's work that I know, as a friend, he has most likely had to experience as we all have. It is good then that he can transmute his pain into an artistic experience that should be paramount to us in this day and age of instant gratification. We should be glad there are still impossible dreams out there. They keep us grounded, and Kevin is nothing if not grounded.

Nightmarish imagery abound in this intersection of Sid & Marty Kroft and Francis Bacon. The slightest bit of deus ex machina might come into play here, but only to damn our hero further.

[Vincenzo Bilof · Rating 5 out of 5]

With something new and interesting appearing on every page, Donihe’s House of Houses reads like an assault of concepts, each idea seemingly fitting into a puzzle. Maybe that comparison isn’t correct; perhaps the ideas are bricks which build a house, although the book itself is the house and there isn’t a blueprint that clearly defines what the book should look like. Each page constructs a world upon a world, or a house upon a house.

The book is something of an odyssey; though the story’s length is relatively short, the first chapter seems distant by the time you’re finished reading. Somehow, Donihe manages to bend time; one man’s journey to House Heaven to find his beloved—a house named Helen—is unique in its presentation and scope. Each page seemed to present another question, and I kept turning the pages to find answers I didn’t necessarily need. I felt as if I were discovering a world Donihe didn’t design; there’s a sense of place that collides with the surreal as if the book is a collage of dreams stolen by Sigmund Freud from a dozen of his most demented patients. By sharing some of the images in this book, I would ruin part of its charm and mystery.

The beating heart of this story involves subtle commentary on relationships, government, reality, and sexuality, to name a few of the ideas that are challenged. Dark humor quirky enough to provoke smirks and laughter from the audience didn’t provoke a “that’s funny” reaction for me, but rather, I felt these moments or images in House of Houses provided the mortar between the story’s layered bricks. I felt as if I were witnessing the Dystopian nightmare of a post-industrial society. Based on my calculations, the book is scored at 4.86 stars, rounded up for review purposes.

[Sam Niemeyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

In my early 20’s, I read House of Leaves (like everyone else did) and I found the idea of houses as an entity intriguing and read a lot of house themed books with little discrimination. I hadn’t researched House of Houses as something I thought I’d like but was following a hot trail of novels with a house motif. Just snuffling around and slurping up anything basically. Did I like it? I did not, no. I don’t have any specific problems with the book, it just wasn’t for me because I’m easily disgusted, frail, and prudish. I didn’t think that I was any of these things until I read this book then I realized my stuffed animals and I just want to be happy. The book falls under the genre of bizarro lit, but it was too bizarro for me. I tap out at weird lit. It was also excessively masculine, sexual, and despairing. I had a strong reaction of disgust and “oh no what now” which is a good thing for a story to be able to do, just not when it’s happening to me. If you enjoy genitalia, despair, and houses, this book is for you. I hope this review helps someone find their new favorite book.

[Andrew Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than the other Donihe books I have read, it took me a LONG time to get into this book. Throughout most the first half of the book, I kept asking myself, "Why should I care?" And then, once I passed the halfway point, something clicked and I realized why I should care: Because I fucking love Carlos and I heart his relationship with Hellen the house. This book is beautiful. One of the best (most romantic) romances I have read. Furthermore, and I never imagined I would say this before reading this book, EVER, but the sex scenes between Carlos and his house-lover Hellen are some of the best / most intimate / touching I have encountered in literature. And lastly, the ending of this book made me sad (in a good way).

This book is awesome. And although it did take me a long time to realize that, I now know I will never forget it.

[Liam Underwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

As has now become something of a tradition for me, I took a bizarro book on holiday with me. This time it was House of Houses, which perhaps isn't the best book to be reading whilst lounging around a pool. Admittedly my experience with bizarro is extremely limited - to date I have only read HELP! A Bear is Eating Me! , Apeshit , and The Sorrow King (clearly I need more holidays) but House of Houses didn't really work for me. This often felt weird for weirdness sake. I preferred the second half of the book to the first, but this is the kinda book where the description of the book is far more interesting than the actual experience of reading the book.

2/5

[Ashley Crawford · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my third outing into the world of Bizarro and I'm becoming increasingly intrigued. First there was Carlton Mellick III's Satan Burger (intriguing but over-wrought). Then there was the stunningly strange Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson. Now we reel drunkenly away from the fleshly bricks and mortar of Donihe's House of Houses - a strangely powerful and moving parable about man-house-love. If that doesn't make sense that's fine. The premise of this book is so surreal it belies categorisation. Perhaps that's a good thing but unless you're already embroiled in the world of Bizarro you'd probably never find it. It's worth the search.