Long story short, I've realised how bad my brainrot has become and want to start reading again. I need it to be non verbose but interesting with good characters nonetheless.
I would say the best books I've read were the Knife of Never letting go, Percy Jackson, and the Rosie Project, but I read them over 10 years ago in my teens.
Looking to avoid books that kind of meander and never really go anywhere (Nobody writes to the Colonel), are overly verbose (Crime and Punishment) or try too hard to make a point at the expense of a decent plot (The Alchemist, The Midnight library).
Sorry if this comes off as arrogant, I'm just fed up of picking books up and dropping them after 20 pages, just need something that hooks me fast for my tiktok brain but still showcases some good literature, preferably a Classic.
If my taste in films is a good indicator, I love Kubrick, Tarantino, and mindfuck movies like Charlie Kaufman stuff. Was considering maybe trying some Kafka?
Probably linked to the brainrot, I also feel very apathetic and anhedonic am looking for something to spark my interest in life again (but not self help or books with a message, more in the sense of charming characters that you fall in love with and wish you could meet etc or a rags to riches story where you're rooting for them the whole time).
Edit: doesn't have to be short; I'll read 400 pages if 400 pages were genuinely needed!
by TemporaryFix101
6 Comments
Are you open to the idea that a classic could also for example be a great noir or slice-of-life?
I just finished *They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?* and it was incredible, 112 pages, not a wasted word. (It’s not about bad things happening to horses btw.) There are also got foundational noir novels like *In A Lonely Place* and the great crime classics like *The Friends of Eddie Coyle* and none of them is remotely verbose, and all of them are tightly written.
There’s always Hemingway too, he is kind of the “no wasted words” guy. *The Old Man and the Sea* is fabulous and his short stories are incredibly good.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck’s *Tortilla Flat* and *Cannery Row*.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is fairly short.
There’s a graphic novel version if you want the highlights of the plot without the verbiage
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Slaughterhouse-Five
Fight Club (if you haven’t seen the movie)