Readers will get lost inside this book.

And getting lost inside of Mark Danielewski's nightmarish fantasy House of Leaves is just one scary thing to happen.

The core of the novel is a horror/romance story of what happens to a photojournalist whose house is bigger on the inside than the outside. It's about hiding from monsters you never see.

But this story isn't just about getting lost inside a labyrinth. Reading the novel is like disappearing inside the labyrinth itself.

House of Leaves is like The Blair Witch Project in novel form. Even the shaky camera movements translate to the novel. You'll find yourself turning the book upside down and skipping through 30 almost blank pages to read a few sentences.

This creative typography isn't just a gratuitous attention-getter -- Danielewski has written a novel that is the labyrinth. As someone crawls through a tunnel, the words become tight and small on the page, for example.

This complex opus took Danielewski 10 years to write while sitting in a California café drinking orange juice and lattes. Though this was his first published novel, artistic talent runs in his family. His sister is the musical artist Poe, whose last album Haunted, includes tracks that refer to her brother's novel.

In the novel, everyone who comes into contact with this story about the house becomes cripplingly ob-sessed -- including the reader.

Those who pick up this novel, might find themselves forgoing work, sex and substances in the name of this story, much like the narrator did.

That is, if they get through the over-analytical textbook parts -- something students already get their fill of during their classes.

Luckily, this textbook is fun.

It's a fiction story with footnotes that go off on tangents about wild nights and that refer the reader to appendices with information that doesn't exist.

Don't even start this book unless you don't have anything else to do for the next two days other than tearing through this 700-page opus.

Don't think a book could be that intense? Try it, and I'll see you when you find your way out again.