Night Film

by Marisha Pessl

[empressbrooke]

I picked this up off the "new releases" shelf on a whim, and it sat on my own bookshelf while I read a book for a book club and a couple things that had to go back to the library soon. The entire time I was doing that, all I could think about was how much I wanted to be reading this book instead. Between the summary from the dust jacket (investigative journalist investigates the death of a reclusive cult horror filmmaker's daughter) and the glimpses of the different pieces of media sprinkled through the insides, I was completely intrigued.

Once I finally sat down with it, I seriously considered taking a day off work to finish it. I was completely immersed in the world and dying to know more. The epistolary bits really added to the world building and I had to remind myself a few times that Stanislaw Cordova is not a real filmmaker. Last night before going to bed, I read a sequence where the main character snuck into a place where he wasn't supposed to be, stayed up too late frantically reading about what he encountered there and then couldn't bring my adrenaline down in order to fall asleep.

Marisha Pessl joins [a:Gillian Flynn|2383|Gillian Flynn|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1232123231p2/2383.jpg] and [a:Tana French|138825|Tana French|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1277505771p2/138825.jpg] in my list of women who are totally killing it in the mystery/thriller genre these days. Pessl isn't as good with characters are those other two authors are - the mysterious horror filmmaker and the dead daughter have more personality and presence than the actual main character and his investigative sidekicks. Pessl's writing also isn't as as refined as the others' - there were places where it felt clunky. But I still loved, loved, loved this book, and I'm so thrilled to have all these women in this genre.