Scan barcode
A review by maggiemaggio
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
4.0
4.5 stars
I finished this book more than a month ago now and it's taken me a while to process everything that happened. This is a great book. It's creepy, exciting, maddening, and extremely well done and I enjoyed pretty much every moment of reading it.
When I first started reading I wasn't sure what to make of Scott McGrath. Was he a smarmy, lying journalist or was he a honest guy just trying to get to the bottom of tough stories? I came to really like him for much of the book, even though towards the end I lost some respect for him.
As Scott does his research into Ashley's death he comes across a lot of interesting characters. Two of them, who he takes on, begrudgingly, as research assistants took me by surprise when they ended by being two of my favorite characters. I loved Nora so much and I loved how she seemed to be one thing, but then turned out to be completely different.
Not only is this book told in traditional narrative, it also has newspaper and magazine articles and other pictures and things scattered throughout. I thought this was a really interesting way to provide background for the story and to really paint a robust picture of some of the characters. There's one picture of Ashley where I turned the page and literally almost screamed (I was on a plane so thank god I didn't!).
There are two things I really struggled with with this book. First, I kept wondering if a director like Stanislas Cordova really exists? I like movies, but I don't know much about underground film making. I certainly hope no one like him exists, but I did wonder. I also wondered about things like a secret internet. Is there really a secret internet? I have no idea about anything like that, either, but I kind of hope so. Second, and this is just the nature of books like this, I hate all the diversions that have to be offered when telling a story like this. Clearly the first guess about what happened to Ashley isn't going to be the right one, otherwise the book would be 200 pages rather than 600 pages. I did like how some of the earlier guesses came back with slight adjustments later on.
The only thing I really hated about this book was the end. It kind of came out of no where and then just kind of fell off. But the rest of the book is so interesting and so well done that I wouldn't let that discourage you from picking this one up.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
I finished this book more than a month ago now and it's taken me a while to process everything that happened. This is a great book. It's creepy, exciting, maddening, and extremely well done and I enjoyed pretty much every moment of reading it.
When I first started reading I wasn't sure what to make of Scott McGrath. Was he a smarmy, lying journalist or was he a honest guy just trying to get to the bottom of tough stories? I came to really like him for much of the book, even though towards the end I lost some respect for him.
As Scott does his research into Ashley's death he comes across a lot of interesting characters. Two of them, who he takes on, begrudgingly, as research assistants took me by surprise when they ended by being two of my favorite characters. I loved Nora so much and I loved how she seemed to be one thing, but then turned out to be completely different.
Not only is this book told in traditional narrative, it also has newspaper and magazine articles and other pictures and things scattered throughout. I thought this was a really interesting way to provide background for the story and to really paint a robust picture of some of the characters. There's one picture of Ashley where I turned the page and literally almost screamed (I was on a plane so thank god I didn't!).
There are two things I really struggled with with this book. First, I kept wondering if a director like Stanislas Cordova really exists? I like movies, but I don't know much about underground film making. I certainly hope no one like him exists, but I did wonder. I also wondered about things like a secret internet. Is there really a secret internet? I have no idea about anything like that, either, but I kind of hope so. Second, and this is just the nature of books like this, I hate all the diversions that have to be offered when telling a story like this. Clearly the first guess about what happened to Ashley isn't going to be the right one, otherwise the book would be 200 pages rather than 600 pages. I did like how some of the earlier guesses came back with slight adjustments later on.
The only thing I really hated about this book was the end. It kind of came out of no where and then just kind of fell off. But the rest of the book is so interesting and so well done that I wouldn't let that discourage you from picking this one up.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley (thank you!). All opinions are my own.