Welcome to Nightvale Book Review
An Entirely Informal Review on Welcome to Nightvale
What Is Welcome to Nightvale?
Welcome to Nightvale is a book based on the podcast of the same name by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink. While the podcast is told through a radio broadcast, the novel Welcome to Nightvale is more on the ground so to speak. The reader follows two Nightvale citizens as they navigate through their strange town and try to solve mysteries regarding pieces of paper and hormonal teenagers. The reader gets more of a feel of what an everyday Nightvale citizen does and what happens through town.
What I Love About Welcome to Nightvale
The strange and creepy and hilariously morbid voice I as an avid Welcome to Nightvale podcast listener have gotten accustomed to has not been lost in this novel. I was only on the first page and I was sniggering at the absurdity of it all. As the story of Jackie Fierro and Diane Crayton unfolds, we follow them through the town of Nightvale and we visit places and get more detail about these places that we have not heard through the podcast. There is a very vivid description of the library where the librarians live. We talk extensively with notable Nightvale residents like Old Woman Josie. We find out what it's like to live with the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home. All this is told in the absurdly creepy yet presented as completely normal style that we have come to expect from the Nightvale universe. But by far my favorite is that even though you are presented this absolutely strange world, there will be things said that will resonate with our real worlds.
What I Hate About Welcome to Nightvale
As much as I loved diving into the Nightvale world, I didn't really care much for the story. Personally, I thought the storylines presented on the podcast were a lot more interesting. (Who's a Good Boy episodes, amirite?) Maybe I'm a tad biased because hearing Cecil's voice in a podcast adds a level of immersion that my own brain didn't provide when I was just reading on my own. Cecil Baldwin (voice of Nightvale and narrator) did record the audiobook version of this novel and I have not listened to that so maybe the audiobook version provides the level of immersion I was looking for. A running complaint I have with novels with multiple POVs is that I find myself more interested in one over the other and then reading the POV of the character I didn't really care about became a chore. I liked following Jackie Fierro a lot more than Diane Crayton but as I said, that's more a problem with me than with the novel itself.
Would You Recommend Welcome to Nightvale?
ABSOLUTELY. If you listen to the Welcome to Nightvale podcast, definitely pick up the book. Especially since there is a Nightvale episode that is entirely an epilogue to this book and having not read the book and listening to the episode will be like listening to someone tell an inside joke you aren't a part of. BUT you don't HAVE to listen to the podcast to enjoy this book. If you enjoy strange, creepy, and the absurd, you will enjoy this novel.
Favorite Welcome to Nightvale Quotes
“You, of course, should always chant when you wash your hands. It is only hygienic.”“It was a fair question, although the problem with fair questions is that they are asked about an unfair world.”“Sometimes it is easy to forget which things in the world can feel pain and which cannot.”“You will collapse, surrounded by a bright glowing blackness, and you will find yourself on your hands and knees, the warm water running over you, and you will know where the pawnshop is. You will smell must and soap, and feel a stab of panic about how alone you are. It will be like most showers you’ve taken.”