I want a book that is more about the feeling it gives you while reading it then it is about the actual story. I don't mean that the story should be bad but the atmosphere of the book should be most important.
Example books for me were American gods(I read it before the allegations) which, for me, invoked the feeling of riding in a car, listening to music and looking out of the window. Also Never let me go which had an amazing plot but what really captivated me was the mixed atmosphere of emotional dread with sporadic beautiful moments in it.
I know this is very non-specifica but I hope maybe someone will understand it the same as me and have a suggestion.
by Intrepid-Ad-6636
17 Comments
A month in the country by J L Carr which is a short, brilliant comic novel basically about happiness and sadness at the same time.
McCarthy is pretty good at that.
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Oh, also Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
N. Aslam, Maps for lost lovers
Two that I can think of off the top of my head:
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff. She has an uncanny ability to make you feel like you’re with the protagonist out in the woods.
The Searcher by Tana French makes you believe you’re in a small Irish village that can feel claustrophobic at times.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman, it’s only a short book, but it packs a punch! Also A Man Called Ove if you haven’t read it already
The invisible life of Addie Larue. Just finished it, it was a beautiful ride
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
The Virgin Suicides (…i think that really gave me the sort of feeling you describe anyway, but it was decades ago that i read it!)
Lol I know you’re asking about a book but your post reminds me a lot of this indie video game that was just released called Keep Driving, I’d check it out, you might enjoy. It’s pretty much exactly what you describe.
I think many of Banana Yoshimoto’s works have a similar feel to them, you might enjoy Kitchen (and the little unconnected novella, Moonlight Shadow which it’s usually published in one volume with — make sure to check, you don’t want to miss out on it!), Moshi Moshi, and Goodbye Tsugumi! Murakami’s Norwegian Wood is another of those books for me, The Sea by John Banville, and Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart also come to mind, and admittedly I haven’t finished it yet, but I feel Han Kang’s new novel, We Do Not Part fits as well, as does another of her older books, The White Book.
Flowers for Algernon
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
I would say Erin Morgenstern’s works fit that vibe for me. They’re very atmospheric and vibey and wonderful.
Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Intermezzo.
Go As a River – Shelley Read