Do I dare write about Night Film? I do.

Hmmmm.  So I saw this was a book for a book club on Instagram and I am always interested in book club books; so I gave it a shot.  How’s that for weird grammar???

Anyway… this book is about this reporter, I can’t for the life of me remember his first name I think it was Scott but I could be wrong, last name McGrath who is looking for more information about this girl, Ashely, and her apparent suicide.  Ashley is the daughter of the very famous Cordova who is a super secretive director that everyone seems to want to know more about.  Cordova used to make films for Hollywood, but eventually went underground to do some really heavy, hardcore movies that were banned for the general public.  Basically, in order to have seen some of his underground work you had to have seen it in one of those underground theaters or know someone who has a copy.  McGrath doesn’t think that Ashley killed herself on purpose and the more he uncovers the weirder things get.  He teams up, unwillingly, with two “kids” one named Hopper who is a drug dealer and Nora who is an aspiring actress, both want to know what happened to Ashley and both have some things they are trying to hide.

So where do I start?  This was an interesting book for me because there is an interactive app that goes with it and if you use the app it shows you a bunch of stuff that is “extra” to enhance the book or whatever.  That being said, I really liked the interactive app.  I think that some of the pictures and some of the verbal accounts were “scarier” than the book itself.  One of the last things that I scanned from the app was a diary and the entries in it, particularly the last one, was creepy to say the least.  BUT, at the same time, the app also pulled me out of the story to stop and listen to what ever was playing or read whatever picture was connected to it.  It kinda dulled my reading experience and actually made reading the book a lot slower.

On to the actual book!  Let me start with all the things I didn’t like and move on from there.  I didn’t like the number of characters.  There were SOOOOOO many characters in the book I was tempted to pull out a notebook to keep track of all the characters.  I read a review from someone on GoodReads saying that they felt the author was trying so hard to make the world of Cordova that all the characters were swept under the rug, and for the most part I believe that.  Except when it comes to Nora, Hopper, and McGrath, I feel like they were pretty fleshed out.  To me, a character doesn’t have to change from the beginning to the end and for the most part McGrath stayed the same.  There was so much running around and so much speculation at the end that it was left open to you to decide what really happened.  Which some days I like and some day I wish the author had kinda finished.  There were also some minor racial remarks toward Asians, but I didn’t write down exact quotes nor do I remember what was said exactly other than it annoyed me slightly.  But other than that I pretty much enjoyed the book.

I loved the world of Cordova.  I love the mystery that surrounded Cordova and I actually liked that McGrath was such a nosy ass sometimes.  McGrath embodied a nosy reporter, desperate to get a new story, especially about the man that ruined his career and I really admired his tenacity.  Nora was a sweet girl who was grounded yet believed in the supernatural which was interesting.  Hopper was the aloof asshole who tried to keep everyone in their place, but not around enough to care to much about.  I think the thing I really liked was there was not really a major love story.  This was basically just a thriller, mystery and it didn’t stray too far away from it.  I liked the writing style and voice.  Overall not a bad story.  Do I dare?  I do.