Books Even More Insane Than You

Shelf Life: Summertime Sadness

Welcome to Shelf Life, our themed book list series.

When it comes to feeling summertime sadness, they say the only way out is through. But there's another option: The process can be expedited by books with protagonists and plots so deeply unwell that your own wretched emotions will look like a Hallmark film in comparison. Let the literary insanity light the way out. See our favorite picks, below.

All Fours by Miranda July

We’re not here to discuss whether or not Miranda July’s latest novel is about menopause; we’re here to explain how it details the way in which a crush can crack open your life to previously inconceivable notions of tenderness and understanding. All Fours follows an artist on a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York City — except that she exits the freeway 25 minutes away from her house and never hits the road again. It’s delusional, raunchy, touching, and completely batshit. We promise it will take your mind off whatever you’re going through.

Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler

It’s hard to say who is the most unruly character in Banal Nightmare, Halle Butler’s millennial malaise masterpiece, which skewers a generation with a joy verging on sadistic. After the abrupt end of a long term relationship with a true narcissist, 30-something “Moddie” leaves Chicago and returns home to X, a Midwestern college town where she’s suddenly back with her college friend group, who in the last decade has become mired in the trappings of domesticity. It’s hard to stay depressed about your own life when you read Moddie’s well-intentioned emails asking a visiting artist to go to the arcade with her or her drunken rants about NPR, which lead boring moderates to call her crazy. 

Worry by Alexandra Tanner

The insanity and dread within Alexandra Tanner’s debut novel hits the closest to reality: doom-scrolling, hating your job, emotionally terrorizing the ones you love simply because you can. (There’s also a willful three-legged dog named Amy Klobuchar.) Tanner is so precise in her cultural observations that you’ll have no choice but to throw your head back and cackle. The mundane can be very funny (and freeing) if we allow it to be.

Luster by Raven Leilani

Your soulmate might not live off the L train — but do they live in New Jersey? Raven Lelani’s Luster asks the questions that matter. In this novel for a Tinder generation, a young Black woman goes on a date with an older white, married man only to have his wife end up hiring her as the couple’s live-in nanny to their adopted Black daughter. As if dating or being employed wasn’t hard enough! Luster is a sexy, insane, poignant novel that will make your heart swell with relief that you are no longer 23 years old.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder

While The Pisces and Milk Fed include lots of beautiful fucking and sucking, Melissa Broder’s Death Valley is a story of grief and survival — literally. Broder’s narrator gets lost in the California desert after stumbling upon a mystical cactus, kicking off a propulsive, hilarious, and truly bonkers fight for her life. Could your “situationship” really be that bad if you can drink water whenever you feel like it? Something to think about…

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

The gift of Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love is making you feel like being insane is the only reasonable way to be a person. This ‘80s classic follows the Binewskis, a family of certified, mutated freaks. Stick with us a moment: There’s a boy with flippers, Siamese twins, an albino hunchback, and the youngest, who looks normal but possesses telekinetic powers. The family takes their show on the road, performing in circuses in backwater towns while shifting loyalties and Machiavellian dynamics between the siblings threaten to upend and destroy them. If you need to leave your reality for a little while, there are fewer enjoyable and engrossing ways to do so. 

You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

Alexandra Kleeman’s canonically insane novel has it all: girls who only eat oranges and popsicles, chemical desserts, something called Disappearing Dad Disorder, lifetime supplies of veal, pornography addiction, and decoys designed to populate the television world. This dystopian, allegorical novel mimics and estranges the cognitive dissonance of being a girl in a body. It’s the kind of deranged that can only be called one thing: brilliant.

Bad Thoughts by Nada Alic

Nada Alic’s short story collection makes the tiny mechanisms of being human glamorous, no matter how humiliating. Alic’s stories are set in Los Angeles, following women with break-in fantasies, women consumed with desire to touch a man’s penis over his pants, and women who go to support groups to undo too much enlightenment. Thanks to Alic, you, too, can join the throngs of rockstar girlfriends, wellness junkies, reality TV hopefuls, and nobodies with embarrassing impulses, and feel less alone.