Whenever I feel bad about my life, I like reading books about characters who have their shit even less together than me. I’m looking for books about people who are weird and a total mess but still fascinating to read about. The more chaotic they are the better. They can be kind, evil, insane, gross, whatever, as long as they’re a total human disaster.
I prefer reading about weird loser women but male characters are acceptable as long as the book doesn’t give “written by a man who never speaks to women in real life” vibes. You guys know what I mean.
by CryptographerLost357
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The short story “Pics” by Tony Tulathimutte, or his novella “Main Character,” about an AFAB NB character, both available in the short story collection *Rejection*.
The protagonists of Sabina Murray’s *A Carnivore’s Inquiry* and YZ Chin’s *Edge Case* are both really icky people, though the carnivore (cannibal) is also really funny about it.
*My Dark Vanessa* is about a victim of abuse by her teacher and it puts you right in her self-loathing, self-harming skin. Big trigger warnings for this one.
Ditto for Ruth Ozeki’s *A Tale for the Time Being*, which is partly narrated by a suicidal teenage girl undergoing some absolutely horrific school bullying.
I never finished An Yu’s *Braised Pork*, but I feel like that might also fit the bill here. I hope some of these suggestions help!
Maybe Jenny Lawson’s work?
*Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine* by Gail Honeyman
Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett
Everybody In This Room Will Someday Be Dead, by Emily Austin. The synopsis made it sound like it would be a lil comedy about a person who ends up at the wrong place uh oh and shenanigans ensue woo! But the book itself is probably one of the realest depictions of a self-destructive cycle I have ever read. So much of the book is spent in the protagonist’s thoughts and she is depressed, obsessive compulsive, and pushes away anyone who cares for her under the pretense that she doesn’t deserve to be cared for or want to put effort into any of her relationships. It doesn’t end super tragically, if that is what you may be concerned about after reading that description. But yeah it is one of the best “okay I see what people mean when they tell me to pull myself together” books I have read
Maeve Fly, by CJ Leede. I will warn, this book can be really graphic. Like disgustingly graphic at times. Both in terms of sexual graphicness and violent graphicness. Nothing super illegal I suppose but yeah it won’t be a book I’d give my grandmother. The book follows a protagonist who kind of hates everyone around her and is discontented by everything, and she slowly goes mad conspiratorial narcissistic in her thoughts. She is the definition of pathetic, to the point that you wouldn’t want to hang out with someone like her either. Like she is obsessed with herself and thinks of herself as so much better than everyone around her. And yeah the graphicness is because she has a lot of sexual and violent ideations that she goes over, so