"It Devours!? Oh yeah, I've read that book."

This book was written like anything else within the Night Vale world. It's strange, but oddly satisfying to see the connections that the writers make. This story centers around the clash between science and religion when people start disappearing from what seems to be random events. One of the few complaints with the writing that I had was the writers weren't always subtle with the points they were making with the theme. Sometimes the message felt a little forced, but I enjoy the style of Night Vale enough that I was able to forgive that.

I really enjoyed the character development that Nilanjana went through. Her perspective as an outsider longing to be a part of the community was really interesting to see, and it's something I haven't seen much in the books that I've read. Also, I liked how her feelings as an interloper affected her relationship with others, especially Carlos. To me, the strongest part of this book was how the story looked out the way people long for acceptance in their communities and how their actions can revolve around that. I also thought it was a nice touch that the writers would write Nilanjana's thoughts as hypotheses because, ya know, she's a scientist and all.

The part that I felt lacked was how Carlos reacted to the desert otherworld. In the podcast, he didn't seemed unhappy in the otherworld but more curious about it. But, in the book he treats it as if it's some horrible place. And this discrepancy was a bit of a downer for me. So was Nilanjana and Darryl's relationship. I felt like at the end, though it was realistic, they hadn't really learned anything from each other. At least it felt like Darryl didn't learn much from Nilanjana (she probably learned some about the importance of community from the Congregation at least). But, the impact of their relationship on each other just didn't feel as important as it should have. Overall though, I still really liked what this story was going for.