I've been having a really hard time focusing on reading lately. I'm normally a huge reader, and reading is my primary hobby these days. But I am overwhelmed with the state of the world, busy with work, and preoccupied with family life (two small kids, a dog, and a complicated household), and when I have downtime I find myself spending much more time scrolling on my phone or going on Internet deep dives than prioritizing reading. I'd much rather be reading, but I just can't focus on a book for a long stretch of time. I would love a recommendation for a short, compulsively readable work of literary fiction. I just absolutely inhaled I Who Have Never Known Men over the course of a day, and it felt so good to read a book I couldn't put down. I'm not looking for a similar book necessarily, just something that will captivate me from the first page and not let me go until I finish it. Besides IWHNKM, my favorite books this year have been What If We Get It Right? by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino, Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada, Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganesthananthan, Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, and Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed El-Kurd.
by crook_ed