I love ottessa moshfeg (may have spelled that wrong)
And I like Sylvia Plath esque works. I like poetry but like long form. Strange books about mental illness or the human condition. I like lovecraftian esoteric horror as well. Dark heavy deep themes. I like depressing books??? (Is that bad) ?
by Squishgrimmy
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Mona Awad- i think her work would speak to you.
The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
The Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys
Roxane Guy books, they are both smart and dark and female. “An Untamed State” is all of that and gripping
The Yellow Wallpaper
A woman after my own heart!
I think you’d love Sayaka Murata – her short novels *Convenience Store Woman* and *Earthlings* are both excellent and weird, but I’m going to recommend her collection of short stories called *Life Ceremony.* It runs the gamut between dark and humorous, but all weird, and unlike a lot of short story collections, it has no duds.
Some more recs:
*My Sister the Serial Killer* by Oyinkan Braithwaite (dark and humorous)
*Mexican Gothic* by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (great and campy, but in a smart way)
*The Memory Police* by Yoko Ogata (eerie and sad)
*Tender is the Flesh* by Agustina Bazterrica (dark doesn’t begin to cover it, get ready to be psychologically damaged)
*The Disaster Tourist* by Yun Ko-eun (weird and absurd)
*The Hunger* by Alma Katsu (creepy and supernatural take on the Donner Party)
ETA- how could I forget *The Vegetarian* by Han Kang. Weird, dark, metaphysical, poetic, and some people just hate it (but not me).
Mystery/suspense ***The Plot*** by Jean Hanff Korelitz. Its protagonist has stolen a plot for a book which becomes a best seller and then must deal with the aftermath.
It starts off slow, picking up the pace after Ms. Korelitz details all the work an author goes through to get a story into the hands of a reader.
The broken earth series – the world is ending, this woman is just trying to survive and find her daughter, and everything gets thrust upon her. It is about war, greed, racism, responsibility…. fantasy. Hugo award.
When women were dragons – a young woman has her life upended and has to grow up real quick for herself and her sister. It is about feminism and feminine rage. Several awards. Fantasy.
White Oleander – a young girl loves her mother but when she is taken to jail for murder, her world is upended in the foster care system. She tries to find herself there but trying to be your mother’s daughter is such a heavy burden. Oprah’s Book club, and the movie with Michelle Pfeiffer won two awards. Fiction.
This is how you lose the time war – super short but riveting fantasy book about …. you know what, coming into a blind is a real treat so I will leave you with that. It won three awards. Scifi.