The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home

In this third Night-Vale novel, you can really see how the authors\’ skill has matured, deepened, and developed. This includes their skill of breaking your heart. The first Night Vale novel was fun, light, but heavy on the trying-too-hard-to-be-quirky. The second was a great balance of humor, quirkiness, and a sometimes painful but sometimes hopeful, grounded plot that was enhanced by Night Vale\’s weirdness, not overpowered by it. Now, Night Vale and its quirks and humor are almost entirely absent, with the majority of the plot taking place in the world outside. The world-building is truly excellent – every touch is perfectly placed. The plot has twists that I genuinely did not see coming. The traditional story-telling tropes are upended. In this novel, I can honestly say I see the authors\’ best writing displayed to it\’s best potential. This is also their darkest book. There is humor, sure, but it\’s always laced with pain. You\’re going to smile, and laugh, but your mouth will be filled with blood while you do it. It was worth every moment but it\’s not a book I will reread often.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in your Home is a life-spanning first-person account of how the Faceless Old Woman got to Night Vale. Her story is tragic, is about what a life of revenge can do to a person, and has MANY exciting twists. Even though her origin is not very \”Night Vale-ish\” it is far beyond ordinary. It involves smuggling, piracy, and lots of murder. The book did have a moment about halfway through where it slowed down for me, but by the end of the story, you get why, and it all comes to together very nicely. The end was awesome! It was very \”Night Vale-ish\” and creepy but that\’s all I\’ll say! You don\’t need to know Night Vale to enjoy this story! It\’s at times humorous, adventurous, tragic, and deep.

Mara Wilson\’s performance is wonderful, the characters are memorable, and I am genuinely a little sad that I\’m now done listening to this audiobook. I know I can always go back and listen to it again, but you can only read (or listen to) something for the first time once. Despite seeing a couple of the \”plot twists\” coming (though there were definitely a couple that surprised me), I really enjoyed it. That said, I\’m not entirely sure it\’s 100% in line with all the things that have been said about the Faceless Old Woman in the podcast. The novels are supposed to be relatively independent of the podcast though–and the Faceless Old Woman is a mysterious entity, so who knows what is or isn\’t true?–and this didn\’t factor into my rating of the novel itself.

Got this novel last night and finished it tonight. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home is my favorite Nightvale character/resident, but I was slightly worried about ordering this book because I was afraid that it would ruin my connection to her. But this book does not. This is not a complicated novel, but much happens and the pace keeps the reader just a 1/2 step ahead of the speaker (the perfect pace in this kind of genre). The personal exception to this is that I guessed the ending fairly early on, so I was anxious to get to the ending throughout the last 100 pages. However, as anxious as I to get there, my focus kept shifting from one point to another. This was intentional, and it helped me to feel some of the \”ba-BOOM\” at the end of the novel. The final chapter is probably the most unsettling I have ever read, and I loved every well-placed letter of it. Also, in regards to me guessing the ending, it should be noted that I have my MA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing (specifically in poetry belonging in the Feminist/Uncanny genre), so most people will probably not guess the ending as early on as I did because they have made more practical decisions regarding their education and their livelihood. I also liked that there was no slipcover to this novel (at least my copy of it). I get to keep the lovely cover art without having to finagle my grip and my reading position in order to keep the cover pristine. In conclusion: Purchase and read this novel. It is tragic, lovely, heartbreaking, gripping, clever, eerie..everything you could ever want from a novel. After you read it, perhaps you will be lucky and wake up with centipedes in your mouth.

I am a huge fan of the first two Night Vale books. I’ve listened to a few episodes (30-ish?) of the podcast, though they aren’t my preferred media format. The Faceless Old Woman had a lot of potential. I like the different style the authors pursued with the historical fiction angle. I didn’t feel like the end was particularly climactic though. 3/4 through the book felt particularly rushed and the authors skipped over a lot of the protagonist’s life. I understand this could be interpreted as a plot element (revenge ate years of my life/several chapters of content?) but I feel like character development and a longer lead-up to the end would give the poetic ending more oomph. Also, much like real life, the protagonist never learned enough about the antagonist and their goals: each layer added more depth but insufficient complexity. Or perhaps she didn’t divulge enough once she did learn more, as is implied at the end, but it left me feeling unfulfilled.

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