Hello! And thanks for clicking on my post, I really hope someone can help me with this!
So, I’m going through a horrible time in my life, my own feelings are overwhelming me and I feel as lonely as I’ve ever felt. I’ve always relied on books and music to ease these feelings, but lately I’ve been having a TON of trouble finding any read that gets me hooked… I’ve been really looking around the internet for some recommendations, but I’ve found nothing.
The thing is, I want something that makes me reflect on my situation, that’s mature and profound, but that doesn’t leave me with a feeling of existential dread for a couple of months (looking at you the Bell Jar). Recently I read the Midnight Library and A Man Called Ove, and both felt childish and predictable.
What’s a book that has touched you? One that made you reflect on life but left a sweet flavor once you finished it? I’d be so grateful to receive some recommendations! It can be any genre!
Thanks in advance!
by The_Gitrog_Creature
6 Comments
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Personally i loved Conversations with Friends by her better, but that’s an unpopular opinion
Sally Rooney is very hit or miss so it’s very personal, for me it really hits all the right things and is very unique and just makes you think
Normal people specifically is over years and years of these two peoples lifes, it’s not a romance, it’s just life as it goes
The Catcher in the Rye. It’s about a guy in his late teens who gets expelled from school. He’s feeling disillusioned with life so he goes wandering around NYC, with no real destination, trying to find himself. It’s very well written.
Try Mitch Albom:
Tuesdays with Morrie
Have a little faith
Siddhartha or Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse
*A Month in the Country* by J.L. Carr. It’s a novella. A emotionally damaged English veteran of World War I gets a commission to restore a mural in an old church in a small village in England. It touches on friendship, love lost, love unexpressed, and the healing power of art.
It’s simply beautiful. Bittersweet and so touching without being mawkish. It’s one of my favorite books.
Still Life by Sarah Winman is mature and doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be a life lesson in disguise (like Midnight Library does). I don’t know that I’d go as far as calling it profound, but the characters are intriguing and the writing is subtle.
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley is about a group of friends who gather together when one of them is having a major life crisis and they help each other through it (and life). It’s light-hearted but does not shy away from the hard stuff. The ending is a touch trite (like Ove) but the rest of the book is worth it.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. It’s a micro look at the plague by following one family. It just so happens that the head of the family is William Shakespeare, but it’s really not about him at all. It’s really a story about how different people handle a difficult thing, and those people exist within a family and affect each other.