012. ADD ME TO YOUR LIST/ Books to read if you feel like you're weird, complex, awkward

and much prefer solitude. Because sometimes humans are just too much to deal with.

Round of applause to the weird girls who sat at the back of the class daydreaming , writing, thinking weird thoughts and bonding with people that also thought the same. You loved Winona Ryder and horror movies and you have your weird quirks. You don’t dress like the norm and you’re defs not what everyone would call the cool girl back in the day but you still think about changing your Bebo wallpaper and MySpace profile if you had the chance. You sat cross-eyed in the library looking at Third Eye books trying to find the ‘hidden’ images and you weren’t the sporty type.

You’re probably still the girl who wears black everyday and drives to your corporate job listening to hardcore emo and punk on repeat to get out that inner rage of dealing with incompetent people all day. Gosh, that’s a little bit specific isn’t it?

Hi yes, that’s me. Everyday.

You’re not alone, so let’s be weird and strange together. 🙌🖤🙌

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Eartheater - Dolores Reyes

The premise is wild and in a way reminds me of those people who end up on those ‘people with the craziest obsessions’ shows. Here we have an Argentinian woman who eats dirt and gets visions of the missing and the dead. So many things I loved about this, but with it also being a mystery at the same time, there’s this way that Reyes still highlights the forgotten of society and the brutality of violence that exists today.

Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger

It’s the book that all the guys seemingly put out of their satchels when they want to look intelligent AF but really… Ok, maybs that was a bit harsh, but that aside, we have a teen boy expelled from a prep school struggling to come to terms with the adult world and growing up in a society where being alienated is just another stage people go through. Trigger warnings in this, it contains all the sensitive issues: violence, suicide, pedophilia, drugs and alcohol etc.

Whereabouts - Jhumpa Lahiri

You know that feeling of being caught between wanting to belong to something but also wanting to form lasting ties? Between home and work, this woman never feels at ease and this sense of detachment and loneliness ensues as everything feels unsettled around her. Such a meditative read at the same time.

The Woman In The Purple Skirt - Natsuko Imamura

This woman is literally just that - a woman in a purple skirt going about her daily life unaware that she is being watched, her life being closely manipulated by one other hoping to be her friend. This novel will confuse and delight you till the end.

Life Ceremony - Sayaka Murata

This culmination of short stories by the queen of the strange is really really weird - I mean, the first story is about a husband and wife falling out over clothes made out of human materials. Its all weird AF and this will guarantee you getting out of that reading slump.

Weird Women - Edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger

If you like weird stories then these women have got you. After the success of their first anthology of the same name, they’re back with another collection of supernatural fiction stories by the greats such as Edith Wharton, Margaret Oliphant and more - think witches, haunted India, vampires, and ghost stories. Delicious.

Earthlings - Sayaka Murata

Anyone who reads this can also agree that this is one fucked up book. The basic premise of this novel is that it’s about a woman who believes she’s an alien/ she also finds a man online who wants to get married to just get society off his back and equally they they start to see all humans as brainwashed members of society. The descriptions of abuse in this are gut-wrenching so caution in big capital letters with this one.

Boy Parts - Eliza Clark

She’s a woman in her 20’s and a photographer on a downward spiral persuading men to pose for her in uncompromising positions in Newcastle. The persuasion is real and so is the unhinged status.

I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman

39 women living imprisoned in a cage underground watched over by guards with no recollection of time or how they got there or their past lives. Its a heartbreaking tale of female friendship and intimacy and the lengths people will go to to survive.

The Vegetarian - Han Kang

What’s a lady gotta do to just be a vegetarian nowadays? It’s constructed in three parts and set in modern day Seoul and tells the story of an artist making a decision to stop eating meat after having violent and disturbing dreams about the death of animals. A must read.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

Modern privilege at its finest. She’s a young graduate who lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and like everything else, its all paid for by her inheritance but she’s over life and wants to take a year off and relax and hide away under the lights of sedation. So what could go wrong?

My Sister, The Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite

Two sisters in Nigeria who have more secrets between them and are creating new ones; one is a clean freak, the other is vain and impulsive and she’s just killed 3 of her boyfriends therefore making her a serial killer. Such a good storyline.

Lapvona - Ottessa Moshfegh

A motherless shepherd boy. The breastfeeding scene. A power struggle with the villagers. This is definitely one of the weirdest things I’ve read yet.

Absorbed - Kylie Whitehead

The madness of loving your partner so much that you just absorb them; its the novel on the distortions of love and body horror that you never knew you needed. It’s unsettling but another great one that will get you out of that reading rut.

Terminal Boredom - Izumi Suzuki

Ever since reading these short stories by Suzuki, I wish I had discovered her work sooner; there’s something gritty and daring and wonderfully unsettling about her prose and her ability to indulge our fantasies with the unfamiliar and the surreal with a dark and playful punky undertone.

Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh

A story narrated by an older Eileen, tells the story of her past and being consumed with resentment and self-loathing for home life. She dreams and has perverse fantasies and dreams and one day becomes pulled into a crime that surpasses her wildest. It’s creepy and weird and witty and has that sort of Hitchcockian twist but if you couldn’t tell already, Moshfegh is the queen of weird so settle in for the long run.

A Certain Hunger - Chelsea G. Summers

A food critic who loves sex as much as she loves food but her love life? Hmm nada. And why might that be? Oh she just plunges an ice pick into a man’s neck and decides to embrace her femme fatale and we get introduced to a charming psychopath you’ll actually love reading.

Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

She’s 36 and she’s never fit into society, into her family or school but she ends up finding a job in a convenience store called Smile Mart and to the detriment of everyone else, she starts to find purpose in her life.

Bliss Montage - Stories by Ling Ma

Eight stories by the author that brought us Severance so you know these are going to be good. They’re tales of people and delusions, possession and motherhood, toxic relationships and loneliness - all aspects of society laid bare in stories that range from the outlandish to the harshly similar.

Hard Copy - Fien Veldman

She’s a woman who works in customer service and we all know that can be draining as fuck. She’s frustrated, lonely, and struggling with life so who else does she look to for support? Not a best friend or family member but instead, the office printer. Gosh this book is a hoot.

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Hope y’all liked these recs! Until the next book list…

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