Reviews - Welcome to Night Vale

2.89k reviews for:

I've been listening to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast for a few years now, and I feel like I'm just about done with it at this point. I was wondering whether or not I was just burnt out on the whole thing and whether that was colouring how I saw this book, but after seeing a few reviews here on Goodreads it seems I'm not the only one.

This book just isn't very good. It takes about 250 of it's 401 pages to actually start telling much of the story, often going off into tangents that mean nothing and go nowhere. It may be an attempt to build atmosphere, but the constant undercutting of every world building moment with a punchline kind of ruins any of that and the book feels neither overtly funny nor sufficiently scary, a balance that the podcast was at one time able to pull off very well.

Around the last hundred pages, when the characters finally started to show some agency and do something, the book started to feel like less of a slog, bumping it up to a two-star rating for me. Bigger fans of the podcast, especially those who like it in its current state, will probably like the book, but I wouldn't recommend it for most people.

jeffkevlar's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

manjala's review against another edition

4.0

This was so weird and entertaining!
The writing style is just so... clever.

Sometimes I got reminded of one of my favorite games, Night in the Woods. If you liked that game and its weirdness, you will like this!

evie_cr's review against another edition

5.0

It makes more sense if you listen to a podcast or two. I stopped after a few chapters and did that and then it clicked.

ari_stocats's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

raven_morgan's review against another edition

3.0

*** An eARC of this book was received from the publisher vis Netgalley***

I am a long-time fan of the podcast, Welcome to Night Vale, and was naturally looking forward to the release of the novel associated with the podcast.

I wish I could say that I loved the novel, as I had expected to. There's nothing particularly bad about the novel itself - if you're familiar with the podcast, you'll recognise most of the little details of Night Vale life that are inserted everywhere in the book, as well as the many quirky (to say the least) characters.

Unfortunately, for me, as a written work, the novel just doesn't quite gel. The voice is spot on when you compare to the general voice and tone of the podcast, but it's a voice that doesn't quite work well in the written form. It makes it very hard to get past the surface weirdness of Night Vale and into the characters themselves.

And for those who aren't familiar with the podcast, I suspect this book isn't going to work at all. There are too many in-jokes and references to events and characters, without any kind of easy way in for new fans. I suspect the book may have worked better if it had truly been a "welcome" to Night Vale itself, and distanced itself more from the podcast. However, I suspect a hell of a lot of fans will disagree with me there.

And all of that said, I suspect that this book works wonderfully in one way: if you're a fan of the podcast and familiar with all of the Night Vale weirdness, and if you listen to the audio book. Reading this made me realise just how much Cecil's narration is intrinsic to the successful formula of the podcast and the whole world of Night Vale.

Worth reading if you're a fan and are interested in the story explored within, but possibly not at all if you're not a fan of the podcast.