I just finished reading Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones over the course of a sick day. I enjoyed it and part of that was the length (just over 100 pages). I've read and loved many a big fat novel, but I also love a "slim volume" and those seem hard to come by.
It was actually really surprising to me to find something so short classified as a novel. I've been through the process of querying agents and have had it drilled into me that word-count minimums are paramount. That bookstores don't want to stock books of unusual widths.
But there's a lot to be said for a complete, full story that can be easily read in a day but not necessarily in one sitting. Why don't we have more ~100-page fiction books?
by offlabelselector
2 Comments
Used to be called novellas but publishers seem to think they’re not commercially viable these days – shame really since some of the best stories work better compact
Publishers say readers want big books for their money, but readers say they want shorter books. Meanwhile I’m over here finishing a 120 page novel in one sitting and feeling more satisfied than after a 600, page slog.