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3.19 AVERAGE
3.19 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This is one odd little … book. I don’t really know that I liked it, but the writing was good and the whole experience is atmospheric.
The book drops you down in a small midwestern town, where nothing really happens and nobody gets up to much. That trend continues throughout the entire book, more or less. There’s some homemade videos that start appearing on returned video rentals, and the guy working at the video store investigates it with almost a disinterested attitude, but he just can’t let it go. He follows it passively for years.
A couple things stand out to me with this book.
First, unlike almost every other book I’ve ever read in my life, this is not a story that follows either exceptional people or exceptional events. Everyone in the story is an Average Joe. Simple folk. And the events are occasionally a bit strange but nothing super remarkable. It’s a book about life, and loss, and moving on. It’s not a special story, and I think that is precisely the intent of the author.
Additionally, this is not a book that provides a coherent narrative. The chapters are given to us, in a somewhat logical order, sometimes with large jumps in time. It feels like a puzzle, except that now that I’ve finished it, I’m very confident it’s not. Not because there’s nothing to theorize about or speculate on, but because there’s no answer. This isn’t a book that explains itself. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just there for the reader to experience and that’s it, really.
The book drops you down in a small midwestern town, where nothing really happens and nobody gets up to much. That trend continues throughout the entire book, more or less. There’s some homemade videos that start appearing on returned video rentals, and the guy working at the video store investigates it with almost a disinterested attitude, but he just can’t let it go. He follows it passively for years.
A couple things stand out to me with this book.
First, unlike almost every other book I’ve ever read in my life, this is not a story that follows either exceptional people or exceptional events. Everyone in the story is an Average Joe. Simple folk. And the events are occasionally a bit strange but nothing super remarkable. It’s a book about life, and loss, and moving on. It’s not a special story, and I think that is precisely the intent of the author.
Additionally, this is not a book that provides a coherent narrative. The chapters are given to us, in a somewhat logical order, sometimes with large jumps in time. It feels like a puzzle, except that now that I’ve finished it, I’m very confident it’s not. Not because there’s nothing to theorize about or speculate on, but because there’s no answer. This isn’t a book that explains itself. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just there for the reader to experience and that’s it, really.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
beautifully written, but! i didn’t understand what was happening and was really bored at times 😔 was waiting for something really scary to happen or some explanation and we didn’t really get that.
tense
medium-paced
Loved the first half of the book. And overall, the writing is great, the story is eerie, and the book itself is very atmospheric.
“Their grief wasn’t his to bear, he knew. But it was inside him all the same, like a secret entrusted to a messenger.” John Darnielle writes prose so plain yet smart that you lose yourself in the words. I’m borrowing his frequent use of second person point of view, a perspective that disorients and sometimes confuses the action of this story. Most of the confusion is intentional and satisfying by the end when all is told. You never know another person’s story, but you can tell it to yourself anyway (and maybe you should?). This book is about community; having it, losing it, finding it. There is parenthood, partnership, and the always complicated and changing relationship between parent and offspring. There was also a lot in this story about humanity’s connection to land and “home,” and how those things change over time. The story is presented without judgement or advice, which I loved. “It’s in the nature of the landscape to change, and it’s in the nature of people to help the process along; there’s no getting around it. It’s the same everywhere in the end.”
it's like the author was not sure what genre this story was supposed to be in. It jumped time periods, characters and plots. When I read the description, I thought it was going to be a creepy, scary book. Nope, it was disjointed and the ending was so anticlimactic.
read all 214 pages and still could not tell u what it was about and what was on the f*cking tapes. John Darnielle I want my money and time back 0 stars
Not what I expected, actually, and fairly anticlimactic as a result. Nice imagery, nice idea, but not what I was looking for. I will read his other best seller to see how that suits me, though.
After reading Wolf in White Van, I thought to myself, “Huh. Maybe I’ll like Darnielle’s next book better.” I was wrong.
Sorry, John. Your writing is great but your storytelling is not. I’ll stick to your music.
Sorry, John. Your writing is great but your storytelling is not. I’ll stick to your music.