In a reading rut and want something I can't put down. I usually like literary fiction and the last books I've really locked in on have been The Bell Jar (I know, I know) and Heartburn (my second time reading it).

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Wynne · Answer

Liars by Sarah Manguso: An absolutely perfect book about a far from perfect marriage. If you love books about miserable people (written brilliantly) this is for you.

Wynne · Answer

All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews: This is an excellent book. It’s absolutely hilarious, while also being devastating. One of the best things I’ve read in a while and makes me very curious to read more by Miriam Toews.

Loose Links · Answer

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel: Widely loved by all in an intergenerational women’s book club. A bit spooky but not scary. Sucks you right in.

sunset strip mall · Answer

A Good Person by Kirsten King: This book is on the sillier side, but it just got me out of a reading rut – I read it so fast! dislikable female protagonist narrator, ominous plot, genuinely laugh-out-loud funny at a few points: the back cover compares it to gone girl, but it gave me more the vibe of books like A Touch of Jen, Banal Nightmare, or Exalted

even*cleveland · Answer

Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin: Polly Solo-Miller Demarest has more than enough— a loving if overworked husband, two charming children, a close (maybe too close) extended family, a fulfilling job, a fabulous apartment, access to a vacation spot. She is meeting expectations. She should be happy. She is happy. And yet ... maybe she wants something more? Colwin is so terrific at rendering humans on the page, WASP-ishly frayed collars and all, that reading this book feels like crashing a great party, and WHAT AN ENDING. I am deeply aggrieved that no female filmmaker of the 1980s or '90s made this into a movie (paging Joan Micklin Silver), because it deserved to become a repeat-watch classic.

Martha Tesema · Answer

The Disappointment by Scott Broker: I think this novel has some of the best chapter titles I've ever read.

Jess · Answer

Melmoth (Sarah Perry): A gorgeous countertext to Melmoth the Wanderer. The characters are both flawed and scarred, but the book argues for the importance of bearing witness to atrocity nonetheless.