A review by eunhyeeeee
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, by Jeffrey Cranor, Joseph Fink
4.0
Here is what a book is like.
The parchment, the ink, the cover, the dust collected from years of sitting on shelves and being placed in human hands where skin flakes will crumble and come to rest between the pages.
Each letter alone doesn’t equate to much, but taken together in words, and words put together in sentences, the letters can spell terrible and brilliant things.
Hours of your life will be spent just staring at symbols printed on a page in a carefully designed order.
The edges of the papers will cut your fingers and the hard cover could potentially be used as a bruising weapon.
The story inside will break your heart and the characters will become a part of you forever, living eternally in your mind in their own pocket universe.
And you will never think the same way ever again.
This is what a book is like.
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home is probably the one of the best origin stories I’ve ever read, with an amazing protagonist who grows so much and goes through every single change a character can go through. She’s such a great character in WTNV, I love every moment she appears on the show.
I loved how she never really got a name, yet that didn’t hinder the story at all. I loved all the different characters and individual facets of the story. Pretty much a perfect plot, my only critique being the pacing for some scenes was a little quick. Some really integral parts of the plot went by so quickly that by the time they were done I realized I had to reread since they were pretty important twists.
But I love this book and it’s definitely a great WTNV companion story. Anyone who loves the podcast and its dark and clever writing will love this book, despite most of it not taking place in Night Vale.
I also think anyone who hasn’t ever listened to WTNV (and should start listening to it right now!!) who likes dark and twisting stories will like this book, as you don’t need to know WTNV to understand the story. But there are allusions to the podcast and its characters in here, so you might miss little inside jokes.
4.5 stars, only because the pacing just was off at times, and a few tiny phrases I noticed were kinda repetitive.
The parchment, the ink, the cover, the dust collected from years of sitting on shelves and being placed in human hands where skin flakes will crumble and come to rest between the pages.
Each letter alone doesn’t equate to much, but taken together in words, and words put together in sentences, the letters can spell terrible and brilliant things.
Hours of your life will be spent just staring at symbols printed on a page in a carefully designed order.
The edges of the papers will cut your fingers and the hard cover could potentially be used as a bruising weapon.
The story inside will break your heart and the characters will become a part of you forever, living eternally in your mind in their own pocket universe.
And you will never think the same way ever again.
This is what a book is like.
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home is probably the one of the best origin stories I’ve ever read, with an amazing protagonist who grows so much and goes through every single change a character can go through. She’s such a great character in WTNV, I love every moment she appears on the show.
I loved how she never really got a name, yet that didn’t hinder the story at all. I loved all the different characters and individual facets of the story. Pretty much a perfect plot, my only critique being the pacing for some scenes was a little quick. Some really integral parts of the plot went by so quickly that by the time they were done I realized I had to reread since they were pretty important twists.
But I love this book and it’s definitely a great WTNV companion story. Anyone who loves the podcast and its dark and clever writing will love this book, despite most of it not taking place in Night Vale.
I also think anyone who hasn’t ever listened to WTNV (and should start listening to it right now!!) who likes dark and twisting stories will like this book, as you don’t need to know WTNV to understand the story. But there are allusions to the podcast and its characters in here, so you might miss little inside jokes.
4.5 stars, only because the pacing just was off at times, and a few tiny phrases I noticed were kinda repetitive.