Jun 23, 2023
Death Valley by Melissa Broder
Simon and Schuster Publishing
240 pages
Trade Paperback
Fiction
Content warnings: Some mild language and mild graphic descriptions.

Simon and Schuster Publishing and NetGalley gave me this book for an honest review.

Apologizing to rabbits for eating their dinner doesn’t give an end solution. In fact it makes the situation worse.

A writer is stuck currently in the novel she’s writing because she is in an overwhelming spot of being multiple things at the same time. She’s a wife, a daughter, a caregiver, and a writer and it seems like she’s failing at all of those things. What do you do when you think you are failing?

Take a few days of respite in a Best Western, located in the California high desert. About 200 miles from Area 51. Several people call and ask. Trust the folks at Best Western. That’s exactly what this woman does.

Jethra is a nice character who gives a sense of compassion and she sets the main female character on her way to the trailhead where she finds a cactus in the middle of the trail. It’s slightly split and to save herself from the California heat, she climbs inside.

At this point, the story gets a little confusing and interesting. The story starts warping around the idea of life and how short it really is.

Melissa takes you on this mirage of a cactus that gives too little, a small pink rock that thinks highly of itself and a giant flying bird that helps her back to the top summit to reach reality.

Navigating anticipatory grief, the superstitions of their beliefs, and just questioning her choices that led her to this point in her life. This is what lies in front of this unicorn of all cacti. In search of herself, how she wants to move forward in her life… all this to become lost in the middle of the desert. Apologizing to rabbits…

This book is approximately 240 pages long, and is expected to be released in late September.

I loved how the author was able to make light of a dangerous situation in the desert. I would probably suggest this book to folks who like to see more humor in more critical situations.

Right now, I would give it a 3-star rating. Simply because I didn’t dislike it, but I also didn’t fully get lost in it. Later when I attempt a re-read, I may change my rating on it.

THIS WAS MY FIRST MELISSA BRODER BOOK, AND IT DEFINITELY WON'T BE MY LAST. OH MY GOSH.

I am so thankful to Scribner Books, Melissa Broder, and NetGalley for granting digital access and sending a gorgeous physical ARC for me to chew up and digest, all in less than 24 hours. Death Valley hits shelves on September 26, 2023, and is your key to transporting readers into a mystical world where cacti are the portals into a clairvoyant past, present, and future view.

Our MC is going through a lot and she's trying to hold it together for her spastic superstitious mother, her aloof sister, her chronically ill husband, and her stuck-in-the-ICU father. In order to process her grief, she zips off to the Californian desert to get some space and plan out the logistics for her next novel. She does very little writing but soaks up a bunch of cactus water/juice and gets transported into a world where the rocks are speaking to her, the rabbits are writing her hate mail and she's coming into contact with past versions of her father and her husband.

This "27 hours" meets "Alice in Wonderland" captivates the magical nature of just how scary the dryness of the desert can be, playing mind games on its captives and leaving them out to dry and decay. Our MC learns there's more to live than living in fear through the help of her "maybe real" critter friends.

Finding a will to live and navigating grief (particularly preemptive grief) while lost in the desert. This feels like Broder’s most personal book to date.

Fever dreamish and hazy, you feel like you’re out there in the hot sun along with our protagonist. It’s a real journey, and I was never sure if I was enjoying the book but was always thinking about it when I put it down.

It’s very different to Milk Fed and The Pisces but absolutely has that Broder biting wit, surrealism, and matter of fact view of the world.

The descriptions of the Best Western and the staff who work there were some of my favourite parts of the book.

While this isn’t my favourite of hers, I applaud for going in a different direction and I think many people are going to really connect with this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel, releasing October 24th!

Melissa Broder novels tend to be polarizing; I read The Pisces which I generally liked despite its weirder elements, and didn't read Milk Fed, which seemed to either be the best or worst novel anyone had ever read according to reviews. I like weird fiction though! I like identifiable yet unlikable women MC's!

All this to say I REALLY liked Death Valley. There's still some of the surrealism and weird elements (although not as much as I remember there being in The Pisces) but mostly this was just a really moving story about grief experienced by a woman in her early's 40s whose father is possibly dying in the ICU after a car accident and whose husband is deteriorating after years of a chronic illness. Absolutely recommended.

An existential sojourn for this unnamed sober writer-narrator at work on a novel and compelled to escape Los Angeles, where her father has been in and out of a coma, where her husband has been long-suffering from an unknown illness, to Death Valley where she hopes to - what? Calm herself, something her nature won't much allow, find answers to questions about love and loss, anticipatory loss and the languages of love, figure out the novel she is writing, while staying at a Best Western, and taking herself on a hike to a cactus she found the previous day, a cactus that supposedly doesn't grow in Death Valley. How do we function as humans, how do we lose and find ourselves. Dark humor with an au currant narrator - tied into the internet and reddit and subreddits - yet also a little pat, the symbolism a bit heavy-handed, still I enjoyed the experience and the voice.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an ARC.

3.5 rounding up.

Our narrator in this one certainly isn't likeable, but she is oh so human and relatable. I found myself having 'don't go up the stairs!!' moments a la slasher horror movies several times which knocked this one down a few pegs for me and though introspection and finding oneself while communing with nature is not a new concept for a novel, it worked here.

Interested to see how this one is received by the masses after publication date.

A psychedelic journey into the grief of a woman afraid to ask god for anything. She spends most of the book at war with all things natural: mortality, love, her body, and nature itself.

My 3 stars are more like 3.5, and what keeps the book from a 4 or 5 is that this war sometimes feels pretty static. I understood I was getting the desert as a backdrop or even a character; I eagerly anticipated as much. Despite this, I felt too much of the novel was spent in the desert proper. I will concede that aspects of the extended time in the desert felt thematically and symbolically appropriate enough to shrug off. Still, I believe the novel would be stronger if these scenes had been given more editing or padding.

My favorite moments involved the relatively grounded meditations on all things Best Western, humbling existentialism, and sage wisdom bestowed by Reddit throwaway accounts.

While this isn't my favorite Broder, I enjoyed the trip,

Broder does 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘓𝘢𝘴 𝘝𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘴, with hard feelings instead of hard drugs. And in California, duh.

Death Valley is an absolute gem and has confirmed Melissa Broder's position in my list of authors that I will automatically read. Death Valley follows a woman who escapes her hometown as her father has been hospitalized and might be dying to the desert of northern California to write the novel she has been procrastinating. This introspective story explores her experiences with grief and her family dynamics in the face of this catastrophe, as well as her relationship with her chronically ill husband.

While Death Valley is weird, a little gross, and has some fantastical elements, it is also intensely relatable and vulnerable. It could have been really heavy, but the way Broder interspersed the existential with hope left me feeling overall pretty uplifted after reading. It was also SO funny, and I love the stream-of-consciousness vibes of the tone. Loved it, had a great time, can't wait for more from Broder!

Death Valley was incredibly introspective, funny, and relatable. Even though the basis of the book is melancholy, the narrator's monologue kept me captivated throughout and often laughing. The emotions were real, and I felt them all right along with our fmc.

I lived near Death Valley, so to say I didn't pick the book for its title would be an absolute lie. It also happened to my first book by Broder, and what a wild ride!

The journey our main character embarks on will leave her questioning her past and making decisions that might cost her the future.

Death Valley is a quick read, but don't read it before bed, or you'll find yourself sleepless pondering so many, many things.

I am sorry to say I didn't finish it. I KNOW Broder is beloved, so perhaps I will try again in the future! Thank you for the opportunity to read - apologies this one didn't work out for me.

+ My father died of lung disease, so I'm going to say that this is likely a *large* factor in my struggling to connect with it.

Let me start by saying that I love Melissa Broder. I find her writing delightful and precisely what I love most; relatable, darkly funny, and a little nuts. I was stoked to get my hands on this ARC of her newest novel, Death Valley, out this October.

I enjoyed this as I enjoy all Broder books– it's sharp, funny, and centers on a female narrator who is lost (in this book, figuratively and, for a time, literally) and looking to find herself as it relates to the relationships in her life. In this book, our narrator is a woman who goes to the desert to work on her novel. Meanwhile, her father is hospitalized and has been on the verge of death for some time. Our narrator also has a chronically ill husband at home.

While I found some of this book super compelling: the humor was excellent as always, and the fact that our narrator, like Broder herself, is a novelist with a chronically ill husband, was intriguing. I also wonder about fiction that borders on autofiction, and what it's like for the author and the people in their life to be written about. Anyway, there was also a lot of this book that I found less compelling. The middle of the book was weird in the traditional Broder sense, which I am fine with, but it didn't grab my attention as her previous novels did. Some of it I found to drag a bit, and I think the time the narrator spent in the desert got somewhat redundant and could have been edited/sharpened to be tighter and more emotionally impactful.

The themes that this novel explored: loneliness, what it means to be alive, grief, loss, and death, are all intriguing and worthwhile (in my opinion) to consider and discuss. I think questions of existence and the human condition are fascinating, and I love the way Broder grapples with them– I just thought that her conclusions here were less effective or less impactful, perhaps than in The Pisces, Milk Fed, and even So Sad Today. Fans of Broder should definitely read this; it's a good book– but perhaps unfair to compare Broder to herself– she's set the bar high, and is a tough person to outdo.

Death Valley will stay with me for a long time. Melissa Broders third book gives trippy lore and magical realism which is excellently done. I had high hopes after The Pisces, after all.
Because of the protagonist's dying dad and sick husband, her grief manifests itself in fear and annoyance with herself and people around her. Armed with Redbull and beef jerky, she sets out to do research for her novel in the desert. In this addictive read, you can find florid and descriptive language mixed with the main characters earnest yet hilariously dry inner dialogue (with herself and flowers and rocks too). With her “luminous entourage”, trusty rock friends, fondness for anthropomorphising nature and in turn connecting with her surroundings, the protagonist takes a journey. Through the trails of Death Valley, she sheds her skin. She encounters an enchanted cactus yet when she finds herself really lost and injured on the trail, she deals with grief and loss in its most primal form.

Thanks to the publisher for the free Arc! Publication date October 3,2023.

4.25
this was wild and I loved it
I normally hate "lost in the desert" stories but Melissa Broder's incredible writing style made me fly through this one. I truly think her writing style is so, so brilliant and parts of it gave me "crazy ex girlfriend vibes" (and lord knows I love rebecca bunch)
My only issue was that I struggled with the ending, as everything wrapped up. these "unhinged women" books often fail to come back to earth for me at all, so I feel like I won't long remember the message or specific plot points of this. I will remember its insane plot and writing though, and will definitely pick up more from Broder in the future.
Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

I’ve been a big Melissa Broder fan since The Pisces and also loved Milk Fed. This was so different from those and had a depth that was incredibly beautiful. Dealing with grief before a loss even occurs is a hard concept to construct in words, but she has completely captured that here. I was so pleasantly surprised by this book.

Melissa Broder has become one of my all-time favorite authors over the past few years, so to say I was excited to read an early copy of her latest, DEATH VALLEY, is a total understatement. While nothing may quite compare to my love of her THE PISCES, this was an incredible read.

The novel is a surreal fever-trip, part existential reckoning. and part unexpected survival story. The main character, a novelist, escapes LA to find the rest of her story in the desert. She leaves behind her father recovering from a coma in the hospital, and a chronically ill husband who she is no longer attracted to. Her love of Best Westerns, and the people who work at them, set her on a journey through the desert where she encounters a magical cactus (or, perhaps, just her subconscious).

The book is different from Broder's previous works, but still undeniably her. She is certainly developing as a writer, taking bigger risks and becoming more cerebral. I'm so excited we have Broder's writing in our lives. DEATH VALLEY is something really special and I can't wait for everyone to read it.

i love getting into the heads of protagonists whose thoughts move a mile a minute and death valley delivers completely on the front. torn between taking care of a disabled husband who just wants to spend time with her and a dying father who just wants to be left alone, a woman is caught at a crossroads with the main question of the novel being: how should people give love? there are a lot of psychosexual undertones here that i hope to unpack on a reread, but it was interesting seeing how different acts of love our protagonist has received from her husband and father materialize in her delusions from seeing adult characters as children to tasting something so nostalgic. everything culminates into something that is smaller than it is however, which makes that all the more real as change is often smaller than what think it is. i just wish broder didn't spell out the main theme regarding love languages so clearly at the end as a callback. it could've stood on its own.

Thank you NetGalley and Scribner for this ARC! This was my first read by Melissa and I see why her books are so well loved. The writing in Death Valley is smooth, funny and says so much without losing the meaning of the words.

This book is about grief, empathy and search for one’s self. Death Valley was a quick read that had a wonderful story. I’m looking forward to reading more by Broder!

This was INCREDIBLE. Melissa Broder is one of my top authors, so I knew this would be good but wow. This is her most rich, nuanced, personal, layered work yet. I am so happy I got a chance to read this early.