401 pages
English language
Published April 9, 2015
This was exactly the novel I expected coming from the creators of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. It has all the weird, surreal elements anyone who loves the podcast would expect and feels like a long form podcast episode. Some more novelty would have been welcome, but there is a comforting familiarity to any visit to that very strange town of Night Vale.
I haven't listened to the podcast this is based on but I don't think it mattered. It's an entertaining book filled with weirdness and silliness, but with a real story underneath. It was good? But I don't think it will leave much of an impression on me.
I began listening to the Night Vale podcasts recently, but was quite rapidly hooked.
The book is different from that, obviously. It isn't Cecile talking to you, although there are "chapters" of Cecile's show.
The story was as funny/creepy/weird as ever.
I mentioned earlier that this book's greatest strength and its greatest weakness were the same: its adherence to the silliness of the original podcast. Having finished the book, I stand by this. The deeper, more emotional story -- that of Josh and Diane and Jackie, and how they fit into each others' lives -- is one that works well in a dark and confusing world like Night Vale. What DOESN'T work, though, is that same story interspersed with the comical and ridiculous non sequiturs that are integral to the podcast's appeal.
It nearly took three months to read and was a terrible agony. In the end I determined that I was going to finish it. I decided I was going to hate-finish this book.
There is nothing here. It's a waste of time. It's as substantial and meaningful as Splenda. It's diet soda that is boiled away and all that is left is inexplicable dust. It is not pleasant, it is not good for you. You want all the characters to die from impact after falling from great heights.
It makes you want to set every Diane and Jackie you'll ever meet on fire. You'll want to throw Josh into a bottomless pit and forget all about it and imagine you didn't misplace three months struggling for a literary payoff that is just like diet pop being boiled away. Nothing.
The book consumes space and weighs something and that I think …
It nearly took three months to read and was a terrible agony. In the end I determined that I was going to finish it. I decided I was going to hate-finish this book.
There is nothing here. It's a waste of time. It's as substantial and meaningful as Splenda. It's diet soda that is boiled away and all that is left is inexplicable dust. It is not pleasant, it is not good for you. You want all the characters to die from impact after falling from great heights.
It makes you want to set every Diane and Jackie you'll ever meet on fire. You'll want to throw Josh into a bottomless pit and forget all about it and imagine you didn't misplace three months struggling for a literary payoff that is just like diet pop being boiled away. Nothing.
The book consumes space and weighs something and that I think annoys me the most. I cannot delete it. It just sits there, turning the promise of the amazing Welcome to Night Vale podcast into a worthless meaningless waste of time just like trying to leave Night Vale. In that regard it's much like Night Vale itself, a blank blotch somewhere in some desert, you can't find it but once you arrive you wish you never started looking for it.
This book is a literary Hotel California. Once you check in, you can never leave. You keep on waiting for something to be left after it boils away. Keep on waiting. But in the end it's diet pop and there is nothing at all once it's boiled off.
Except all that time you can never get back. Yes, that's gone forever. This book hurts my head. It's offensive in ways I never imagined a book could be. But I thank god it's over.
It may have also helped me get over the podcast. Ugh.
