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A review by beau_reads_books
No Sleep till Wonderland by Paul Tremblay
4.0
Pertaining to just about anything, it’s hard to follow, what I consider, an incredible debut to a series. Whether or not that series made it past two books is yet to be decided: there’s still time, Paul! I don’t know if he’s left the neo-noir genre in the past for the more recent psychological thriller and horror novels he’s released but I for one would appreciate another couple of detective novels from this author.
Circling back, as I said, follow-up novels sometimes lose the luster that the initial novel creates for readers: a continuance of a story needs to have the same kind of hook and a good reason to bring a reader back. Mark Genevich, narcoleptic P.I., was enough of a hook for me. That being said, I was unsure of his development in this story. Going from a somewhat dumpy, sexless entity in the first novel to having not one but two awkward, I guess realistic, encounters with two different people in the second novel was a bit of a jump for me (the vision of someone tugging on a penis as if to remove stuck gum from hair will forever stay with me.) The reveal towards the end of the novel undid this trauma and brought me right back into the game.
I think what I like so much about these books is regardless of how much we can trust a narcoleptic, hallucinogen plagued narrator, I love listening to him. Saying, “he tells it like it is”, is too undercut: he literally tells us exactly what he’s experiencing. The building suspense of these novels is kind of taken away but replaced with a really satisfying, blunt, “oh shit” feeling. The sentences are short and run together and all of a sudden a man is in my house and he’s not supposed to be here. That kind of feeling.
Similarly to the first, this novel takes you on a cattywampus joyride through a winding, modern noir case with a narcoleptic nihilist at the wheel. There’s going to be suspension of belief at times and that’s kind of the point, not even Mark believes himself at points. It’s unstable, clever, and emotional. Something is missing, and like the first, I can’t tell what.
3.5 bumped up to 4 because I just really like how Tremblay writes.
Circling back, as I said, follow-up novels sometimes lose the luster that the initial novel creates for readers: a continuance of a story needs to have the same kind of hook and a good reason to bring a reader back. Mark Genevich, narcoleptic P.I., was enough of a hook for me. That being said, I was unsure of his development in this story. Going from a somewhat dumpy, sexless entity in the first novel to having not one but two awkward, I guess realistic, encounters with two different people in the second novel was a bit of a jump for me (the vision of someone tugging on a penis as if to remove stuck gum from hair will forever stay with me.) The reveal towards the end of the novel undid this trauma and brought me right back into the game.
I think what I like so much about these books is regardless of how much we can trust a narcoleptic, hallucinogen plagued narrator, I love listening to him. Saying, “he tells it like it is”, is too undercut: he literally tells us exactly what he’s experiencing. The building suspense of these novels is kind of taken away but replaced with a really satisfying, blunt, “oh shit” feeling. The sentences are short and run together and all of a sudden a man is in my house and he’s not supposed to be here. That kind of feeling.
Similarly to the first, this novel takes you on a cattywampus joyride through a winding, modern noir case with a narcoleptic nihilist at the wheel. There’s going to be suspension of belief at times and that’s kind of the point, not even Mark believes himself at points. It’s unstable, clever, and emotional. Something is missing, and like the first, I can’t tell what.
3.5 bumped up to 4 because I just really like how Tremblay writes.