Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home

I loved this book. The adventure has a lot of twists and turns you don't always see coming. There are funny and sad moments, and in the end you end up feeling a million different ways about the things that unfold.

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ippoteq's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book really didn't gel for me. I loved the original Welcome to Night Vale novel, and was lukewarm on the It Devours! follow-up, so it doesn't especially surprise me that this book was not really my cup of tea.

Personally, I think its cool that Cranor and Fink and trying to get away from the Night Vale concept as it exists within the podcast. I just wish they could do that entirely instead of partially. This book could have been a standalone novel in its own right without the weird references to keep it in theming with the Night Vale universe, for example

the country where no-one lives but which produces the best art

, since these allusions just take away from the story that is being told.

I didn't particularly enjoy our protagonist either. I'm not sure if it is the way she's written, or the fact that the narrative constantly tries to justify her, but I found her behaviour incredibly frustrating.

When she discovers her uncle has been using her, rather than try and reconnect to her father by abandoning that life, and living out her days how he would have wanted, she again decides to trample his memory by going to out to kill again? Why?

If this book had been in no way related to the Night Vale universe, I think I would have enjoyed it more, and it would have given Cranor and Fink more freedom to write something at least a little more serious. I also think that, with the book being set in the 1800s, the language they chose to use felt quite odd. It was very typical American speech patterns and dialogue for the most part, which I get is for ease of reading, but some of the wording choices really pulled me out of the time period.

In all, I did manage to finish the book in a couple of days, but I found myself pretty dissatisfied, both with the ending and also looking at it as a Night Vale novel. I think if you've never listened to Night Vale and could ignore some of the weird references, you could possibly enjoy this book, but it really wasn't for me.

Content Warnings

librarymouse's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

You don't need to listen to the podcast to understand this book, but if you listen to the podcast you should read this book. The length to which the narrator's life is systematically and fundamentally destroyed explains her idiosyncratic behaviors on the podcast in a way that makes them make sense in the context of Night Vale's weirdness. The writing is incredibly well done and immersive, and the narrator slow descent into the violent and creepy old woman from the sweet and curious young girl were first introduced to is fully believable in the narrative.

the lengths to which Edmond worked to completely destroy not only the narrator's father's legacy, but the narrator herself are impressive and obsessive in equal measure. The effort he put in, in making sure she would never have joy, have a future, or know her family is astounding, and the revelation about lady Nora is so heartbreaking. The authors did an incredible job making the reader love the narrator even as we watched her become what she becomes. She genuinely loves Edmund's heirs right up until the moment they have a son of their own. Her sense of reality is so twisted and her need for revenge so entrenched that the cyclical nature of her revenge is both astounding and understandable. I really enjoyed that we got to see little Josefina and her angels make the faceless old woman feel welcome for the first time in a long time. After everything, Night Vale is the only place where she could belong.

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