Books to cure your (my) seasonal depression

Winter is upon us here in New Zealand, and unlike other countries that actually experience proper seasons, with cities that are like a romantic fairytale year-round (New York, London, Edinburgh… Paris), Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland is just grey and wet. And it floods. All the time.

There’s also a wicked wave of Covid ripping through the community right now along with some other horrid bugs so leaving the house is even less desirable than it usually would be during the winter months.

My brain is a very delicate ecosystem. I struggle with chronic depression and anxiety which I work very hard to manage along with ADHD. Yoga is my saviour, along with books, writing, and my darling Cavoodle Molly.

But despite my very, VERY best efforts, in winter I inevitably fall into a seasonal funk that rolls in around this time, roots itself deeply into my mind and sets up shop until the fragrance of fresh blooms hits the air in Spring.

I know I’m not alone.

I know Seasonal Depression is a condition felt by many other people too. Winter, coupled with a new wave of Covid and a suffocating recession, times are fucking tough right now. Life is hard, and it’s actually pretty bloody normal to feel bad about things.

But during these times, one of the best ways I know how to find a little pocket of joy or hope, is through fiction.

So to help cure our collective misery, I’ve compiled a giant list of books that will make you feel all the feels — both happy, and sad if you’re the kind that prefers to wallow in your pain (hey, no shame, I love a good wallow).

There are three sections depending on your vibe, so take your pick and choose your adventure.

Thank you for reading Fiction and Fauna. This post is public so feel free to share it.

I want warm fuzzies and happy endings

1. Funny Story by Emily Henry

Daphne Vincent cannot wait to leave Waning Bay in Michigan after being jilted just weeks before her wedding for her fiancé’s perfect and beautiful best friend.

She’s stuck in town however, until the charity Read-a-Thon she’s been organising for the local Children’s Library she works at takes place in 108 days.

Homeless (the shitty ex kicked HER out), Daphne moves in with the only person she knows who is looking for a roomie - the (ex) boyfriend of her fiancé’s best friend, Miles Nowak.

Daphne and Miles barely speak as they come to terms with truly the most hideous break-up in literary history, until they both receive invitations to Peter (Daphne’s ex) and Petra’s (Miles’s ex) wedding in a few short months.

The pair hatch a plan to disrupt their wedding by RSVPing as a couple, and fake-dating until the event in the hopes of making their respective exes jealous.

I loved Funny Story and personally feel this is her best yet.

I like that Emily Henry writes characters that are in their 30s since so much of romance is centred around young people. It’s nice to read about imperfect 30-somethings who are still tryna figure their shit out you know? Coz same.

The setting of Waning Bay Michigan was dreamy too and when you’re wallowing in the misery winter, this book will whisk you away to a wonderful fantasyland.

2. Love on The Brain by Ali Hazelwood

Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project - a literal dream come true - Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school - archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas... devouring her with those eyes. The possibilities have all her neurons firing.

But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there's only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?

I wasn't sure what to expect going into it based on the mixed reviews, but in my view, Love on the Brain had the most compelling plot that was driven by a decent mix of character development and storyline.

In all honesty, Ali's female lead characters are almost always the same but with a different name and slightly different quirks. But I felt much more drawn to Bee who had a lot more self-assured confidence and wasn't afraid of her own sexual desires. It was a good change of pace from the usually, almost annoying, uncertainty her other female leads tend to carry.

3. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

This one could also fall under “I want to be anywhere but here” because by the end of Tom Lake I was feeling down to quit my job, leave the city and move to the country to run a cherry farm with the 2.5 kids I’ve never wanted and a husband I don’t have.

Tom Lake is not a thrilling or gripping tale, but it is a cozy and gentle one.

When you’re feeling a little delicate or fragile and you want to read something that’s beautiful written and celebrates familiar love and the comfort of being with someone who knows you so intimately, then Tom Lake is the perfect read.

4. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

Right from the very first sentence, I was hooked on Elizabeth Zott’s story.

The tenacity and confidence of Zott is inspiring and uplifting, and is extremely relevant even today in 2024 (sadly).

A lot of the horrible treatment that Zott is subjected to is difficult to read, and yet, much of it is still very prevalent in our current society, if not more carefully cloaked to appear as something else.

Elizabeth’s view on life as black and white, right or wrong is surprisingly refreshing, and a good reminder that if you want to pursue a certain path in life, there really isn’t any excuse that can stop you. If you want to do something, there is a way and an answer for everything.

The characters in Lessons in Chemistry are extraordinary and so incredibly likeable. There are a lot of personalities in the story and yet, Bonnie Garmus cuts no corners. Every character is skilfully developed and refined to bring so much depth and tension to the story.

I cannot believe that Garmus herself does not have a background in chemistry because Elizabeth Zott was so believable as an expert chemist!

5. Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.

I loved Cleopatra and Frankenstein and I was interested to read Blue Sisters knowing it took Coco Mellors five years to write it and only two to write Blue Sisters. But if there’s one thing Mellors never fails to deliver on, it’s building compelling characters.

I completely devoured this novel. Coco Mellors is such an exquisite writer, each of the Blue sisters felt so real, so completely developed and interesting with all their complexities, flaws and incredibly unique characteristics that are so true of a group who share DNA but are very much their own people.

Blue Sisters is a story about grief, trauma, love and family. It reminds us that whilst none of us is perfect and we may find ourselves frustrated by our relatives, we are all facing our own internal battles and during the times where we most want to run away from the pain, those are the exact moments we should lean into it and more importantly, lean on those who love us unconditionally.

6. Good Material by Dolly Alderton

Andy's story wasn't meant to turn out this way. Living out of a suitcase in his best friends' spare room, waiting for his career as a stand-up comedian to finally take off, he struggles to process the life-ruining end of his relationship with the only woman he's ever truly loved.

As he tries to solve the seemingly unsolvable mystery of his broken relationship, he contends with career catastrophe, social media paranoia, a rapidly dwindling friendship group and the growing suspicion that, at 35, he really should have figured this all out by now.

Andy has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story.

Warm, wise, funny and achingly relatable, Dolly Alderton's highly-anticipated second novel is about the mystery of what draws us together - and what pulls us apart - the pain of really growing up, and the stories we tell about our lives.

This book was so infuriating, I loved it.

God Andy was annoying. Annoying because everything about his insufferable, whiny, self-pitying character is so FAMILIAR.

We all know/have dated an Andy.

And Jen’s act of radical self-love to prioritise her own wants and needs above that of Andy’s, served as an intoxicating reminder that we all have permission to choose our own path. Her chapter at the end read like my own innermost thoughts at times from relationships past where I was searching for a way out.

Dolly masterfully captured the reality of dating and relationships in your 30s with complex and interesting characters that felt entirely believable and relatable.

P.S. petition for a Jen spin off!!!

7. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, is a booklover's paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books.

Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle Satoru, who has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife Momoko left him five years earlier.

When Takako's boyfriend reveals he's marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle's offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above the shop. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the Morisaki bookshop.

As summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.

I LOVED this book. I wanted a cozy, sweet, Japanese read and that is what this book delivered in spades.

It was quite short and the storyline was simple. It clearly reads as a translated works with unusual language choices that can feel a little jarring, but for me, that is what added to the charm of this beautiful story.

Knowing that it was originally written in Japanese, and being able to identify many of the cultural nods and idiosyncrasies made me smile and in the end, I found myself tearing up with the profound weight of the message. It surprised me that I could be brought to tears by such a simple story, but I think that's what made it so powerful.

This is a story about family. About books. About facing your fears and feeling your emotions.

I related to Takako so many times, particularly when all she wanted to do was pull the covers of her futon over her head and sleep through the rest of her days.

In those moments, I wish I had an Uncle Satoru to love me unconditionally and pull me out of my thoughts and back to the surface.

This is a story I know I will return to and reread time and time again when I need a cozy reminder of what truly matters in life.

I want to be anywhere but here

1. The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive

A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

Well, I can honestly say I've never read anything quite like The Vaster Wilds.

Lauren Groff is kinda like Cormac McCarthy meets Ottessa Moshfegh in the best kind of way.

The novel tells the story of an unnamed girl who escapes the small settlement she was brought to as the servant of her mistress. She takes off into the wild, running and running and running until she can't run anymore. Running from the starvation that has claimed the lives of so many of the residents. Running from the cruelty of the minister. Running from the grief of having lost the only other human she truly loved and cared for.

With nothing but the stolen clothes on her back, looted boots on her feet and her mistress's precious leather gloves to protect her hands from the bitter cold, she runs and runs.

This book is strangely compelling. I could not put it down, despite the relatively small cast of characters and change in scenes.

What made this story so engaging is Groff's incredible ability to develop a scene and draw you into the picture. I wanted to know how the girl survived, what she'd eat next, where she'd end up the next day.

And in the end, despite the horrors of the real world around us, I felt strangely peaceful in understanding that nature will always reclaim her space and what has been will come again.

We will return to nature as we came.

A bit existential, yes, but I was surprised to find that this is exactly what I needed at this time in my life.

2. The Hike by Lucy Clarke

Maggie, Liz, Helena & Joni. Old friends bound by history, adventures, old secrets.

And now, bound by murder.

They lace up their hiking boots for the adventure of a lifetime in the Norwegian wilderness: a place of towering mountains, glass-like lakes, log cabins and forests stolen from a fairytale.

It’s the perfect place to lose yourself – until a broken body is found at the bottom of a ravine.

Somewhere out there, someone knows exactly why a woman has died. And in this deep, dark wilderness, there’s a killer on the trail . . .

I read this while on summer vacay at the beach in my hometown and it made me want to hike through the wilderness in the rain.

So I’m hoping that reading it IN these miserable conditions might make it… cozy? Idk, you tell me.

3. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Jason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.

"Are you happy with your life?"

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that's the dream?

And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human--a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of.

Ok I am not a sci-fi girly by any stretch of the imagination but I am a sucker for Blake Crouch.

I had forgotten about this book until it’s recent Apple TV+ adaptation (which I am hungrily consuming).

Blake Crouch is like the girly pop of sci-fi so if you want a bloody good escapist book with a gripping plot line then I highly recommend this one!

Bonus points if you’ve seen the show or want to see the show because the book is even better.

4. The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them - setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.
Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose - selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate - and not everyone will survive.

I will always love this book because this book led me to the story of Aqua Tofana which it is loosely based on and she is a mega badass.

I also read this book in a day so if you want some solid escapism with a touch of murder, start here.

5. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive. So when Charlie's parents banish her to Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London, determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.

1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, code name Alice, the "queen of spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth...no matter where it leads.

I love love loooovveeee this book! It was such a phenomenal, richly layered story that took me on a true journey. I never even considered myself a fan of historical fiction until I read The Alice Network. I’ve since read all of Kate Quinn’s work and the woman never misses!

Hiiighly recommend.

Thank you for reading Fiction and Fauna. This post is public so feel free to share it.

I want to wallow in my pain and feel as bad as possible

1. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors.

Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes.

When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

No one manages to simultaneously repulse and intrigue me quite like Ottessa Moshfegh. When I read her work, I know I'm about to be thoroughly disturbed and I am here. for. IT.

Eileen did not disappoint. The story of Eileen Dunlop's miserable life spent living with her emotional (and at times, physically) abusive, alcoholic father and working at the local Boys Prison was exactly as uncomfortable as I've come to expect from Moshfegh's work.

Moshfegh somehow manages to get right under your skin and touch nerves you never thought existed. Reading Eileen move through life selfishly and disgustingly (intentionally ripping clothes in a store, wiping her dirty mouth on scarves for sale, touching herself and then shaking hands with someone before washing them... that sort of thing) somehow had me absolutely hooked and I could not put the book down before finding out whether or not Eileen managed to find happiness or not.

Ottessa's work is not for the faint of heart.

Often the reviews are scathing of the body horror and grotesque descriptions.

But that is part of the magic in my opinion.

I read Ottessa Moshfegh when I want to be disturbed. And she never ever fails to disappoint!

2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s only novel is the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty.

In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.

Wow, bold of Oscar Wilde to drop this bombshell of a classic and then never write another novel again.

The Picture of Dorian Gray serves as a chilling reminder of the dangers of putting youth, beauty and aesthetics above all else.

It also serves as a stark reminder of how hollow life can become if you gain everything you've ever wanted, without having to work for a single thing. How entitled and self-obsessed one can become when people will do anything for you at the drop of a hat, just to be in your orbit.

It's impossible not to draw modern day comparisons between Dorian Gray and the likes of deified pop-culture icons such as Taylor Swift, The Kardashians and the Royal Family. How much that level of worship and idolisation would change a person, despite their best efforts to remain true to themselves.

There is a reason this novel is considered a Classic. The fact that Oscar Wilde wrote this in 1890, and yet the themes and ideas still ring true more than 100 years later is a testament to the roots within human nature with which this story is ground.

We can all relate to Dorian Gray in his unrelenting pursuit of youth, beauty and popularity.

We can relate to Lord Henry and his regrets for youth lost and ultimate fear of mortality and inevitable death.

We can relate to Basil, for pouring his whole heart and soul into something which is ultimately meaningless and outside of his control.

This is a story that will stay with me, and I will be truly better for it.

3. Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.

Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.

A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identity—and leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.

I didn’t write a review for this one at the time (stupid, I should have), but I know that Natural Beauty haunted me for a long time after I finished reading.

It definitely made me question a lot of my contribution to capitalism specifically within the beauty industry as there are many parallels between Holistik and a particularly popular beauty store across Australia and New Zealand…

Read it and let me know what you think.

4. Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He’s not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.

Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale. One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language and translated into English for the first time, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling, taut novel.

When I first finished reading this, I was confused and left wanting. I gave the book 3 stars and forgot about it.

However, in the weeks that have followed, it has snuck up on me. I find myself thinking of it and running through the details often. I came back and changed my rating to 5 stars.

This story is haunting, beautifully written, and ground-breaking for a horror novella. There are few stories I've read that stay with me, long after I've finished reading. I find myself wanting to read it again and again, just to absorb the mastery.

5. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday.

Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.

Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

When I tell you I think about this book EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

I ripped through We Need to Talk About Kevin almost two years ago, and I can still vividly remember the story as if I read it yesterday.

It is haunting and disturbing, and such an incredibly terrifying and wild ride.

I’ve always hailed The Secret History as being my favourite book but to be honest, WNTTAK is actually a strong contender!

Reader beware though — this one is not for the faint of heart.

6. My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance.

But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva.

It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be.

Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Ottessa Moshfegh supremacy for real.

Honestly, this whole list could just be her books because they disturb me so goooood.

In all seriousness, this one just hit so close to home. As a mentally unwell girly who takes a laundry list of psychiatric drugs to the point where we might just be treated the side effects of the drugs themselves, I relate to this story hard.

The question around the moral and ethical position of the pharmaceutical industry and the duty of care psychiatrists and practitioners have is also very interesting to me.

But even if you don’t care about either of those things, this is still a great unsettling read.

If you made it to the end of this absolutely massive list, thank you and well done. Leave me a little cat emoji in the comments so I know you did.

Also let me know which, if any, of the books listed you’d like to read or your thoughts if you have.

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