Welcome to Night Vale

Honestly nothing about this book hit right. Everything was weird, which was kind of the point, but that made the things that were weird to the characters not have any impact to me. The tone had this problem as well. Many things were simply said to be funny, so then when I was meant to take the text very seriously it didn't hit right. 

You can't have both and this book trued and missed anyway. Not to mention the ending explained nothing of why Jackie suddenly was able to age. This had nothing to do with all the Troy and King City stuff. It was all very unsatisfying. 

I really have no idea what to say about this. It's essentially an absurdist interconnected short story collection? It's a little lot off the wall and some of it doesn't quite make sense, but I'm pretty sure those parts aren't supposed to make sense. It's also full of one-liners that skewer the very core of the human condition, and also jokes. It's entertaining, entertainingly infuriating, and a little bit just infuriating.

I listened to about 50 episodes of the show several years ago and loved them. But this was 400 pages of ruthless meandering.

You can control the pacing of a radio show in a way that is impossible to do in a novel. So, cramming strange images together consecutively did nothing but make me want to put the book down and have a nap. Some of it is clever and interesting, but you're unable to appreciate those bits when they're drowned out by a million other “weird for the sake of being weird” things.

I found myself skimming over paragraphs because of all the bizarre interjections that I can only assume were supposed to be funny. Instead, they just distracted me from the non-story.

This book is great for people who want a manual about the intricacies of Night Vale which, now that I think about it, would have been a cool idea in place of this.

Anyway, if you need me, I'll be waiting for the bus in the rain.