Hey readers!
I’ve been in such a reading rut for the last few months, so I need all the help I can get!
I’m looking for shorter books that you’ve absolutely loved lately! Bonus points if it’s on Kindle Unlimited, but my librarybhas a HUGE Libby collection and a HUGE physical book collection as well.
My favorite genres are:
1. classics
2. contemporary literature/literary fiction
3. dystopian
4. paranormal/urban fantasy/magical realism
5. horror (splatter punk is fine as long as it has an actual plot and not just gore for the sake of gore)
6. Historical Fiction
7. True Crime
8. Dark Academia
9. And as silly as it sounds, some Middle Grade Books.
What I do NOT like (I have ADHD and find that most of these can’t hold my attention):
1. Literally any other kind of fantasy (mostly high fantasy)
2. Most Young Adult — there are exceptions tho. I LOVED Clowns in a Cornfield, so I’m definitely open to YA horror
3. Self help
4. Most Science Fiction
5. Most action & Adventure
6. Most romance and ALL smut (a little is fine here and there, but I don’t like it to be the entire premise of the book)
Thank you all so much in advance! I can’t wait to hear what you have to suggest! 🤓🤓
by Low-Significance5637
5 Comments
Welcome to the Monkey House Kurt Vonnegut
You may also like Under the banner of heaven, as it blends many of your favorite categories
ella minnow pea by mark dunn – dystopian
foster by claire keegan – literary fic
small things like these by claire keegan – historical fic
when you reach me by rebecca stead – middle grade
none of these have romance, and they’re all about 200 pages or less. hope you love them!!
1. “if we were villains” by m.l rio ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30319086-if-we-were-villains](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30319086-if-we-were-villains)) – dark academia, crime & thriller / 354 pages / has a lot of shakespearean allusions and i liked the book a lot!
2. “the last queen” by chitra banerjee divakaruni ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58782889-the-last-queen](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58782889-the-last-queen)) – historical fiction set in india / 384 pages / really interesting plot, and it took me out of a reading slump.
3. “the sailor who fell from grace with the sea” by yukio mishima ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162332.The_Sailor_Who_Fell_from_Grace_with_the_Sea](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162332.The_Sailor_Who_Fell_from_Grace_with_the_Sea)) – japanese literary fiction, classics / 181 pages / very short but also quite disturbing. the characters weren’t fully fleshed out but the imagery and sense of foreboding lingered with me for a while. there are, however, some explicit scenes
4. “our wives under the sea” by julia armfield ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58659343-our-wives-under-the-sea](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58659343-our-wives-under-the-sea)) – horror, literary fiction, gothic paranormal & lgbtq / 240 pages / the writing is absolutely beautiful and the emotive prose is excellent, but there are some long paragraphs with boring scenes occasionally so i’d recommend you read it once you’re a bit more out of your slump
5. “the kamogawa food detectives” by hisashi kashiwai ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123349554-the-kamogawa-food-detectives](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123349554-the-kamogawa-food-detectives)) – japanese literary fiction & slice of life / 157 pages / finished it in a day; very light read!
okay so not all of these books are short BUT they overlapped with a lot of genres you mentioned, so i hope they help! good luck with your reading slump and let me know what you think if you try out any of these books!
‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ by Agatha Christie.
Lovely characters, warning that two do get together at the end, but it’s more of a vague subplot. I did manage to solve this one and it was a pretty fun read.
Murderbot. It’s a series by Martha Wells. They are mostly short. They are sci fi mysteries with a very engaging main character.