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Night Film

Marisha Pessl

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Sep 01, 2013 El rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: library-borrow, cuckoos, 21st-centurylit

Note to self: Read this Slate.com article when you finish the book. The title of the article is great.

I do this a lot where I read a book and then mentally compare it to other things I've read, other authors, other movies, other things. I hate that I do this because it's so unfair to the work I've just read, unfair to the author, like saying "The only way I can consider you any good is if I treat you the way I would treat this other person/thing that I adore. Good luck trying to overcome that!" Note to self: Read this Slate.com article when you finish the book. The title of the article is great.

I do this a lot where I read a book and then mentally compare it to other things I've read, other authors, other movies, other things. I hate that I do this because it's so unfair to the work I've just read, unfair to the author, like saying "The only way I can consider you any good is if I treat you the way I would treat this other person/thing that I adore. Good luck trying to overcome that!" It's really unfair, though I mean absolutely nothing by it.

That being said, this book is so much like some of my favorite peoples and things! Law & Order: SVU episodes, David Lynch movies (and his life), John Fowles, Rebecca, just to name a few.

I read Pessl's first book when it came out and was rather ho-hum about it. It was cute, but annoyingly so. It was smart, but precociously so. The only thing that saved it (and Pessl) for me was that she was so young when she wrote it that I could at least appreciate a glimmer of talent and I couldn't wait until she was old enough to really be able to cut loose.

This book is finally being old enough to really be able to cut loose.

It's dark and nightmarish and psychological. It's also a shit-load of fun to read. Don't go into it expecting anything, just sit down with it and read it. There are times when you'll wonder if the story ever will end, if anything will make sense in the end, if there will be more questions than answers, if you'll enjoy every minute of it, or if there's any importance to any of these mysteries and tricks and clues. The answer is (no spoiler here) yes and no. To all of those questions: Yes and no.

There's multi-media involved here, and I know I'm not the first to be somewhat reminded of Danielewski's House of Leaves, but it's only familiar in a peripheral sense. The books are both very unusual and interesting, but only superficially are similar in story. I'm not one for gimmicks or bells and whistles, but I have to admit that it really worked this time. And it's not over-the-top. It's (dare I say it?) sort of done classily.

This was a good time. Kudos, Ms. Pessl. This was worth the wait. ...more

21 likes · Like · see review

Dec 07, 2019 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: audio, mystery, psych-psych-psych, fiction, wouldnt-normally-read, is-it-real-or-is-it-memorex

I have a theory that Pessl found herself writing a thriller, but didnt want to be accused of writing a thriller, so she made it as long and drawn out as possible. I’m all for atmosphere, if it actually creates an atmosphere. But passages like this:

Hopper took a drag of his cigarette, brushing his hair from his eyes, and looked up at the sky, squinting at those birds on the telephone wires. More had appeared out of nowhere. Now there were seven— seven tiny black notes on an otherwise empty pie

...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 02, 2013 Liz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

luckily I didn't read Special Topics until this summer, so I didn't have to wait long for Pessl's second book! ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 22, 2018 Sharon marked it as did-not-finish

Several things conspired to make me give up on this book about 20% of the way through, but I think the intense overuse of italics for every point of emphasis--often multiple times in each paragraph--was really what pushed me over the edge.

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