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A review by chronicreader96
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
3.0
Rounded up from around 2.5 stars ⭐️
Nightmare alley follows the rise and fall of Stan Carlisle. Starting off in a Carnival, Stan wants to better himself and he uses his imagination and cunning to do so. But can he keep himself at the top?
I want to start by saying that there were many things I enjoyed about this book. I loved the unique characters. The carnival chapters were my favourite in the whole novel, they were so vivid and I couldn’t put the book down! Unfortunately for me, it went a little downhill from there. I found Gresham’s writing difficult to follow at times. Some of the sentences were overly long and complicated and I found myself reading them over and over to try and make sense of them.
I didn’t like Stan, although you are not meant to. But it wasn’t the same abhorrence I’ve experienced with other books. I went into this expecting something extremely dark. Unfortunately for me it just did not live up to the darkness of previous novels I have read. I found myself constantly comparing it to them, and it just fell short. However, just because it wasn’t dark enough for me does not mean it won’t be dark for other people. Please approach this book with caution as there are some possible triggers. Towards the end I found myself feeling confused by the storyline, I’m still not really sure what happened. I do still hope to watch the film, maybe that will shed some light on things for me. That being said, I loved that each chapter was linked to a different tarot card, it was so unique! I also found the short excerpt about the author really interesting. If you’ve been wanting to read this please do not let me put you off, many people seem to love it! I would definitely consider reading it again after I’ve seen the movie.
I would recommend this to anyone who likes dark thriller/crime novels. Please be aware of possible trigger warnings and some of the language of the time may be offensive to some. I want to thank Netgalley and Bloomsbury publishing for allowing me to read this book and give my personal thoughts.
Nightmare alley follows the rise and fall of Stan Carlisle. Starting off in a Carnival, Stan wants to better himself and he uses his imagination and cunning to do so. But can he keep himself at the top?
I want to start by saying that there were many things I enjoyed about this book. I loved the unique characters. The carnival chapters were my favourite in the whole novel, they were so vivid and I couldn’t put the book down! Unfortunately for me, it went a little downhill from there. I found Gresham’s writing difficult to follow at times. Some of the sentences were overly long and complicated and I found myself reading them over and over to try and make sense of them.
I didn’t like Stan, although you are not meant to. But it wasn’t the same abhorrence I’ve experienced with other books. I went into this expecting something extremely dark. Unfortunately for me it just did not live up to the darkness of previous novels I have read. I found myself constantly comparing it to them, and it just fell short. However, just because it wasn’t dark enough for me does not mean it won’t be dark for other people. Please approach this book with caution as there are some possible triggers. Towards the end I found myself feeling confused by the storyline, I’m still not really sure what happened. I do still hope to watch the film, maybe that will shed some light on things for me. That being said, I loved that each chapter was linked to a different tarot card, it was so unique! I also found the short excerpt about the author really interesting. If you’ve been wanting to read this please do not let me put you off, many people seem to love it! I would definitely consider reading it again after I’ve seen the movie.
I would recommend this to anyone who likes dark thriller/crime novels. Please be aware of possible trigger warnings and some of the language of the time may be offensive to some. I want to thank Netgalley and Bloomsbury publishing for allowing me to read this book and give my personal thoughts.