Someone once told me that if I enjoyed the "John Dies At The End" series, then I would love Welcome To Night Vale. They were so right!

This books was great. Night Vale is such a mess, but in the best way. You just want to see what's going to happen next. And everything that happens is more insane and convoluted than the last thing.

This was all about the Smiling God, the other world that Carlos was once trapped in for 10 years, and oddly, Carlos losing his shit.

I loved everything about this. I listened to the audiobook as I read, and of course Cecil did an amazing job narrating.

Wowzers!  This was so similar and different to the podcast.  I had head of Night Vale for quite some time and when I saw the book on sale a while ago, I decided I should find out what it was all about.  But it sat on my shelf for and embarrassingly long time.  I finally checked out the podcast this year and was instantly hooked on the world, the craziness of it all and "The Voice of Night Vale" Cecil.  When I decided to finally read this, I thought it would be awesome to listen to tha audio while reading along--cuz Cecil.  I swear I would listen to him read stereo instructions.

Anyway, this was a very indepth story about Diane and her form-shifting son, Josh and the unaging Jackie.  This had all of the weirdness and shenanigans of Night Vale.  Time is a mess and there are multiple Troys spread across mutliple towns bringing the mess of Night Vale to other times and wreaking all kids of havoc.  This is full of adventure and mystery.  It was an excellent read/listen.

The event last night with Martha Wells and Ann Leckie was enjoyable and helped me forget some of the crap going on right now, so I'm think I might attend this event with the creators/writers of the Welcome to Night Vale series. This one's taking place a little earlier in the evening, so we'll see if I remember - today's a pretty full day for me, with lots of meetings and a doctor's appointment to look into my hand and elbow issues (although compression gloves and rest seem to be helping a lot with my hands, thank goodness).

Finished! This was better than the first Night Vale novel, even though quite a bit of it was much more predictable. It took the characters way too long to even start thinking about other explanations for the holes appearing around Night Vale.

I preferred Nalanjana as protagonist more than Jackie (the first book's protagonist), and there were some interesting revelations about a couple different Night Vale storylines, like Carlos's time in the desert otherworld and stuff with the Smiling God. That said, I still think the style works much better for the podcast than it does for a book, even in audiobook form.

As someone who is a bit touch averse, I appreciated that Carlos is a character who generally doesn't like to be touched and that Cecil, his husband, and Nalanjana, a scientist he works with, respected this. At the same time, there was something about the way the authors wrote about physical intimacy (even just hugging or holding hands) that made my skin crawl. I'm not sure I can put into words why. Maybe the focus on little details related to the actions, like the warmth of the other person's skin? I don't generally have this reaction while, say, reading about similar actions in romance novels, so I'm not sure what my issue was here. At any rate, Nalanjana and Darryl's first date was kind of fun, but as a couple they wore out their welcome pretty fast.

My gut-level rating: probably 3.5 stars.

If I'm right about what's going on right now, this is a surprisingly predictable entry in the ongoing story of Night Vale. Between the cover illustration and the past storyline with Kevin the Desert Bluffs community radio host, the nature of the Smiling God was pretty obvious. And I've had my suspicions about the timing of those holes ever since Carlos first talked about them.