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A review by singlier
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor 3.5/5 📻s
I picked up this book as a partial nostalgia trip, partial palette cleanser from my usual fare. I first picked it up in high school but never finished it. Now I finally finished it, and am a bit older with some more experience behind me.
I think, first and foremost, this book is weird. And that is both it's charm and it's downfall. It feels more like an exploration of a place than a novel with a plot. It manages to squeeze profound, blunt but resonating truths, within the most strange string of words. The main cast is made up of a mom, Diane, and her shape-changing son, Josh, and Jackie, a pawnshop owner who has been 19 years old for decades, and the plot follows the strange way their lives have intertwined.
I enjoy long books, but my biggest take away is that this book is about twice as long as it needs to be. Nothing is straightforward in Night Vale: with every description comes something unsettling and unexpected, and it pads out the book to where I found myself begging for the plot to continue. In addition, in the effort to interact with most of the memorable characters of Night Vale a la the podcast, the book is made up of a series of interactions that are roundabout and rarely move the plot forward. It's a weird, turn your brain off kind of book, but I wish it was shorter and sharper in it's prose.
I picked up this book as a partial nostalgia trip, partial palette cleanser from my usual fare. I first picked it up in high school but never finished it. Now I finally finished it, and am a bit older with some more experience behind me.
I think, first and foremost, this book is weird. And that is both it's charm and it's downfall. It feels more like an exploration of a place than a novel with a plot. It manages to squeeze profound, blunt but resonating truths, within the most strange string of words. The main cast is made up of a mom, Diane, and her shape-changing son, Josh, and Jackie, a pawnshop owner who has been 19 years old for decades, and the plot follows the strange way their lives have intertwined.
I enjoy long books, but my biggest take away is that this book is about twice as long as it needs to be. Nothing is straightforward in Night Vale: with every description comes something unsettling and unexpected, and it pads out the book to where I found myself begging for the plot to continue. In addition, in the effort to interact with most of the memorable characters of Night Vale a la the podcast, the book is made up of a series of interactions that are roundabout and rarely move the plot forward. It's a weird, turn your brain off kind of book, but I wish it was shorter and sharper in it's prose.