This was so intriguing and vividly told. So interesting to read a novel on what’s usually told through something like comics. Definitely recommend for a Batman/Joker junkie. LOVED the batgirl representation in this, it was as much his story as hers.

Meh.
If I'm going to read a novelization of a graphic novel it had better give me something the graphic novel couldn't - some added depth into the characters or something. Nope, there was nothing here that wasn't told better by the original graphic novel.

Well, that's a bummer...

After having a lot of fun with the “Mad Love” novelization (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3032888262), I decided to see if “The Killing Joke” was a worthy adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1343281411). Given my mixed feelings about the original work, I was actually hoping for an improvement… Don’t get me wrong: I know the graphic novel is a big deal, but one of my main gripes with it is that it feels a little rushed. I’ve read it a few times, and I always found myself wishing it was a bigger book, that some key moments of the story were explored a little deeper. And of course, the fate of Barbara Gordon always irks me. I figured a novelization would be a great opportunity to flesh all those things out, to make the story feel more complete. Alas.

I don't know anything about Crista Faust and Gary Phillips' other work, but after this, I am not tempted to look them up. The original Alan Moore story is merely the second half of this novel, the first being a new story line, taking place 4 years before the famous graphic novel's story. This new plot, about Batgirl's investigation on a new drug hitting the streets of Gotham, could have been interesting, but I just found the writing to be so dry and bad that I simply didn't care. The fight scenes are described very technically, and while I understand that Faust and Phillips' specialty is police procedurals, the whole thing read like a report. There was no atmosphere or tension, which could have made this new plot at least a little interesting.

The second half follows Moore's story almost word for word, and ultimately adds very little to the original story - which really feels like a lost opportunity. For instance, in both version, we are simply told what happened to Jeannie, and then the very next thing that happens is that a grieving widower is coerced into omitting a badly-planned heist. While this can be chalked to limitations of the format in a graphic novel, rushing through that in a prose novel simply feels lazy.

But the most unforgivable thing about this book is how little of it actually is about the Joker. If you are going to novelize the most famous stand-alone Joker story of the Batman cannon, the least you can do is keep him front and center! But we barely see him before the halfway mark! And as a Harley Quinn fan, I must say that the depiction of Ms. Quinzel was simply pathetic. The only truly good thing about this book is that it gives us a hint of how Barbara will carry on despite the horrific assault that "disabled" her.

In other words, nope, nope, nope!