Glad I bought this novelization. Nice exercise in creative writing. It was a little long at 400 pages — at least 50 pages could've been edited down, maybe even 100. I gave 3.5 stars out of 5 over at my LibraryThing account.
I liked how it wasn't just a fleshing out of the screenplay; instead it complements the film. Pretty cool how the ending of the movie pops up around page 100. Plus I enjoyed how it's hinted at how Dalton's (Leonardo DiCaprio's) life turned out after the end credits, in the '70s. And I liked how Tarantino removed ambiguity over the death of Booth's (Brad Pitt's) wife.
While reading Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I recalled Jane Hamsher's Killer Instinct memoir of producing Natural Born Killers, which Tarantino wrote the original screenplay. She said he was overrated and just cut/paste parts from old B movies into his movies. A little cruel but there's some truth to that. For example, the TV show that Dalton guest-stars on, Lancer, actually happened and Tarantino "borrowed" the plot of the pilot. Although it was cool how in the novel he had a couple chapters written like a Wild West yarn, in the vein of Max Brand.
All that said, the ending of the book is great! Much better than the ending of the movie (almost a deus ex machina with its tonal shift). The book's ending is quite uplifting with Dalton and his fellow actor Fraser practicing their lines over the phone before the next day's shoot.
Gotta hand it to Tarantino. His novel is better than when Wes Craven and David Cronenberg took stabs at the art form.
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