Thoughts on : Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl

Posted by on October 19, 2018 3:23 am in 4.5 stars reads | 0 comments

Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl
Genre : Mystery, YA
Stand alone

About the Book  :

Once upon a time, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim—their creative genius and Beatrice’s boyfriend—changed everything.

One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft—the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world—hoping she’ll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim’s death. But as the night plays out in a haze of stilted jokes and unfathomable silence, Beatrice senses she’s never going to know what really happened.

Then a mysterious man knocks on the door. Blithely, he announces the impossible: time for them has become stuck, snagged on a splinter that can only be removed if the former friends make the harshest of decisions. Now Beatrice has one last shot at answers… and at life.

My Thoughts :

I’ve been going through a bit of a reading slump recently – that is, until I read Neverworld Wake, and absolutely enjoyed it. I’ll admit, I was a bit scared going into it; Night Film is one of my favorite books, but it’s been years since I’ve read it and Neverworld Wake sounded quite different. And in truth, they are different: I couldn’t tell you that you’ll enjoy one if you enjoyed the other one, or vice versa.

For me though, it worked so well. Neverworld Wake had so many of the things I love : mysteries, creepy atmosphere, good twists and amazing writing. I love when books fuse intrigue and speculative fiction, and I love books that explore the idea of time, whether it’s time travel, time repetition or any other strange mechanism. It’s so fascinating to me, especially considering everything else that is going on here in this book.

I also loved the concept of the story. It’s clever and fun, and tragic at the same time.

I can think of two aspects here that might be perceived by some readers as weaknesses, depending on your personal reading tastes. The first is the pacing: the book is atmospheric and slow, and while there are some good twists, there’s a lot of a talking and hanging around. If you prefer action, you might find this one too slow for your taste.

The second one is the characters. I usually love complex characters and I was a bit disappointed with Beatrice and her friends. Without being bad or boring, I thought they were a bit cliché and predictable (with one exception), and lacked depth. I also can’t take seriously a teenager who calls his peers “child”! Come on!

But in a way, I was left with a similar impression I had when reading Night Film; the characters do feel like characters, there’s something dramatic and theatrical in the way they and everything around them take shape. It’s cinematic and I enjoyed every minute of it.

For me, I think this confirmed Marisha Pessl as one of my favourite authors – all that’s left to do it to read Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which has now been sitting on my shelf for years!

I read Neverworld Wake for this year’s R.I.P. Challenge and it was a perfect pick, atmospheric and ominous and mysterious. I recommend it!

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