I’ve recently read a sequence of books that forced me to contemplate the very act of reading. My heart in my throat, head in my hands, trying to figure out how to grab the characters through the page/screen/speaker and whimper you have no compassion for my poor nerves!
“I’m so STRESSED ahhhh”
Lots of characters make choices I wouldn’t make. I don’t get why Toru and Reiko have sex in Norwegian Wood. I think You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty’s Feyi could’ve been vaguely more gentle with Nasir. The titular death in “The Death of a Clerk” was, and this is a universally uncontroversial opinion, overdramatic.
The theme there is, “Hmm, I probably would’ve handled that situation a bit differently.” The same feeling I get when listening to someone’s workplace drama or reading Reddit AITAs, not the muscle-tensing anxiety that compels me to put a book down and take a lap.
“The book got so stressful I had to pause lol”
These books—some explicitly thrillers, but not all—feel like a horror movie score being orchestrated in my brain. I’m not a horror movie person, really, unless I’m trying to woo someone or have a phase of wanting to be into film and know the classics. I like thriller films, but feel less tension watching them than I did with, say, Challengers or All of Us Strangers.
Watching a film is a more trapping experience, I think. Certainly in a cinema, where it’s at best awkward to leave and impossible to take a break and continue where you left off. Trapping, but shorter. A few hours and you’re free. When you get sucked into a book, you have the option to put it down at any time; the tradeoff is how much longer it takes to resolve the tension.
“AUGH why AUGH!! It’s GOOD. It’s good. It’s a good book but I am WORRIED”
I am relatively easily scared. I don’t like horror movies because they scare me. I am not all that interested in being scared. I associate genre-induced fear with outside forces, mostly—a big bad guy threatening to do a big bad thing. These books aren’t scary. They’re unnerving because they feature just some guy doing just some thing they thought was a good idea. Just some guy choosing paths I can’t fathom. I’m turning pages or listening to the narrator wondering, how can you possibly be horny right now, why are you taking pictures of your crimes, how could you let your fingernail dent the oil painting?
“it’s a fucking lot”
Because I tend to not know much about a book before I start reading it, I rarely realize what I’m getting into. Most of these books start out unassuming. Something is wrong, but fixable. Surely these characters won’t break it further at every turn. Surely they will emerge, battered and bruised, from this tangled web of their own weaving. Surely they will learn to live with themselves. Surely.
My whyyyyyy are you doing that?? reading list (so far):
Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
The Guest by Emma Cline
No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe
Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov

Sooo funny lmao reminded me of the first time I watched all of Breaking Bad, after it had come out and I could binge it… the horrors and deep personal investment in the drama… SO real. I especially loved reading your texts.