Welcome To Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Kaitlyn
Apr 9, 2018
3 min read

⭐⭐⭐ / 5 Stars

Summary:

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge. Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "King City" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels. Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it. Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "King City". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.

-Goodreads

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While at Barnes and Nobel one day, I noticed this particular book on a sale table that was buy two, get one free. I'd listened to the podcasts here and there, and I enjoyed the one's I had taken the time to listen to in their entirety. So I figured... why not?

Anyone who has ever listened to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast knows just how weird it can be. Be it the Dog Park, the deadly Librarians, the Glow Cloud, or the Secret Police, Welcome to Night Vale definitely knows how to make you scratch your head and laugh out loud. And I can assuredly say that the book, based on the podcast though seperate from it, doesn't disappoint.

In this novel, we're introduced to Jackie, the pawn shop owner, and Diane, the mother of a son who never takes the same form twice. Both of these women are strong individuals who come to rely on each other throughout the novel. We witness their struggles, their triumphs, and their ability to over come the turmoil that an 'asshole' has thrown their life into. I myself, being young and feeling younger though still infinitely old, found myself relating quite a bit to Jackie who is 19, and has been 19 for as long as she can remember.

Throughout this novel, you get snippets from Cecil, who is the radio personality that is the star of the podcasts. If I was truly disappointed by anything in this book, it was the fact that Cecil and Carlos did not have bigger roles. (I'll admit it, I adore them.) I was hoping to get a feel for them outside of the podcast, but alas, it was not meant to be. Otherwise, you get to see the book from each woman's stand point in alternating chapters. When it nears the end, the two women finally come together and start to work towards a common goal.

The reason I give this book 3 stars is simply because it felt a bit slow to me. Took me a while longer to get through it then I'd hoped, and it's not generally the type of book I like to read. But if you are a lover of Welcome to Night Vale, or really just anything strange, than this is the book for you!

-A Review By K