Anyone else feel let down at the conclusion of this book? The premise was seriously great and I love all the film buff content in the book, but the issues I had with it (brutal overuse of italics, copout ending, bloated length and, most unusually, the weird racism towards Asians) were glaring and unavoidable. From what I’ve seen on here and Goodreads etc. it seemed like most people thought the book was great, am I alone?
by art_johnson_666
13 Comments
I loved Special Topics in Calamity Physics so much that I felt sure I’d love her other works. I tried twice to make it through Night Film, the premise of which I was immediately hooked by – but couldn’t keep going. Second book curse, I decided, and moved on to Neverworld Wake, which is so excruciatingly bad that I’m wondering if somebody kidnapped Marisha Pessl and is publishing AI output under her name. I pray she escapes and returns to her past, or future, brilliant self. Would still read whatever comes next.
I hate-read that book. Literally enjoyed none of it, but somehow plowed through its bajillion pages. Conclusion left me feeling similar to the rest of it, namely guffawed. I recall NPR waxing poetic about how great it was. What I’ll give it is its pace/pacing. It’s like a Pessl-ized Dan Brown.
I loved it the first time I read it. I used it as a way to blog the way a book is plotted over at r/NightFilm. My second reading made it clear to me that while I loved the concept, it didn’t really satisfy me. The main thing I disliked was the easy way the plot was moved from A to B. There always seemed to be a chatty bartender or neighbour that knew just enough to get them to the next chapter.
I did love the film buff aspect to it and the way different ways of telling the story were integrated into the book.
> Anyone else feel let down at the conclusion of this book?
Every review I’ve ever read if this book eventually mentions the terrible ending, the rating generally seems to depend on the extent to which the reviewer was able to overlook it. I’ve not even read the book and I don’t know what the ending is, but this theme from the reviews probably also means I never will.
I read it a long time ago but I remember being genuinely creeped out by the witch/voodoo (?) stuff found in the apartment. I don’t remember the ending so I might read it again, lol.
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The excessive use of italics was very distracting! I’m not sure how I feel about the ending; I just finished it last night, so I still have to process it.
I really liked it, ripped through it, read it again not too long after the first read. The problem I had was, two separate people turn up out of nowhere to help the protagonist, stick with him the whole time, then everyone says, okay, bye then. On my re-read I was trying to figure out if they were figments of the main guy’s imagination or what. I read her last book ( Neverworld Wake), and realized that she’s mostly atmosphere. The plots don’t make much sense and the characters are cardboard. I’m a sucker for descriptions of eerie movies though, so I’ll probably read Night Film again.
I got about half way through this and was like….can we please get to the point?
I think what broke me is when the protagonist cancels his weekend with his daughter to talk to some guy, like why? I know they were like “It’s now or never” but this is never explained. I don’t know why that bugged me so much but it did.
It’s the only book I’ve rated 1 star, I hated it so much. Really racist and misogynistic in a way that doesn’t even seem to point out that it’s a flaw of the main character, just something woven into the prose. Took me ages to read because I kept stopping, but I managed to finish it eventually.
The book had me hooked for no reason , but i was very underwhelmed with the ending.
I absolutely loved it. Including the ending. It’s actually a book I still think about every few months, even though I read it back in 2019-2020ish. Over all thought it was amazing. But if I did have to give some criticism, I have two things that kind of stuck out to me.
One, him and his daughter. At first its fine. Gives us some insight into him and his desperation to talk to the director. Even to the point that it’s harming his personal life. But at some point, I think it’s like what another commenter said about he two other people randomly joining him in a way. Like I’m pretty sure there was more than once when he was supposed to take care of his daughter, and then shit just magically came up. I feel like it might have almost been better to just not have her in there.
Second, towards the end when he’s going through the movie sets. It felt a little clunky. It was hard to follow what exactly was going on in certain sets. Nor did half of them really feel important. That whole section could have been cut down.
I did really like the atmosphere and feel of the book, and overall enjoyed it. The film buff aspect really appealed to me. I didn’t love the ending, but the worst part for me was the part going through the old movie sets/mansion. It WAS cool, but the explanation for it a few chapters later was so dumb that it made it really lame in retrospect and honestly felt like video game side quest that didn’t further the main plot.