A review by crystal_staley
Night Film by Marisha Pessl

challenging dark mysterious

4.0

This was a heck of a ride! We follow Scott, a journalist, as he investigates the death of Ashley Cordova, the daughter of an elusive filmmaker with a cult following-Stanislas Cordova. His films are dark and challenging and his fans are obsessed with finding out everything can about him and his work. Scott has a bad history with Cordova and his daughter’s death springs him right back into this world. We follow his obsession as he tries to find the truth, leading down some dark paths. Pessl is a fantastic writer. This story was wonderfully crafted, filled with details about this mystery that unraveled slowly as he interviews people. We get these pieces of information along the way that add new layers of intrigue and suspense. The mixed media elements of newspaper articles, photographs, etc. along with the bonus information you can find on Pessl’s website, are a great addition to the story as well. While this is a bit long, I ate up every detail while also wishing that it would just get to the answers!  So it was a struggle at times with the repetition of the story—interviewing someone, learning new information, moving to the next interview, chasing this person, learning new information, another interview. It got bogged down a bit. But again, I also wanted every single detail that we learned along the way. So yeah—it was a strange ride. The ending left me wanting more!  Overall a very enjoyable story. If you like longer books that gives you bits and pieces along the way with some twists and an ambiguous ending, then I’d recommend this.