I love Melissa Broder's books for being unapologetically weird—and digging into the depths of the human soul at the same time. If you aren't into weird, it's not going to be the book for you, but if you can work with weird you will get some heartbreaking and beautiful truths about grief, loss, and living a life you didn't quite imagine but are trying to make the most of.

Delighted to include this title in the October edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

Melissa Broder is a unique talent. Death Valley is something special. I'm not I always understood what I was reading, and thus can't award a full 5 stars, but I can say for certain that this book left a mark on me. Lots to think about. 4 Stars.

I really enjoyed this book. Similar to Broder's sophomore novel, Milk Fed, Death Valley is a deeply strange yet highly interesting look into the human mind. I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a quick yet insightful read.

Death Valley was a story that took me by surprise. I didn’t expect it to fall into the ‘morally questionable’ female character study.
I related to the main character, probably a bit too much, almost to the point where I felt myself in the endless desert of isolation and self pity she finds herself crawling through.
Not sure what that said about me, because through most of the journey she’s so self absorbed she leaves her bedridden and Ill husband to stay in a hotel in the desert to write a book that’s more of a self exploration memoir.
If you relate to that kind of person, does that make yourself a selfish person who runs away from the irreparable problems of others close to you, and instead wallow in how it makes yourself feel?
No. Because it wouldn’t take most people having a near death experience in a desert ,to realize you’re being a bit of a dick.

I loved this book. Simple and engaging, yet filled with so much nuance. The protagonist was interesting and flawed, funny and heartbreaking. I enjoyed the adventure and side characters and the magical-realism elements adding a captivating level of intrigue. I flew through this and loved every second.

Ahhh, I love Melissa Broder's voice! It's unabashedly honest, wry, messy and unafraid to go places - even when those places mirror deep-seated fears.

I knew nothing about this book prior to reading, only that it had an awesome cover and that I'd had an unforgettable experience reading her previous work, [book:Milk Fed|54304105]. As I was reading, I started to wonder if pieces were autobiographical, and it turns out they very much are. I found it compelling - its collage of real life, fiction, and meta moments - its confessional style with sadness, humour and what may be <i>(or may not be)</i> grief induced magic realism.

My 5 stars is for my overall experience. I'm not going to dwell on the few parts that went on a bit longer than I wanted them to, because by the end I had forgotten them.

<b> <a href="https://parnassusmusing.net/2023/10/11/melissa-broder/">Parnassus Books asks</a>... <i>"Do you feel any pressure as an author to out-weird your previous books? "</i>

Broder responds: </b> <i>"I don’t feel any pressure to out-weird. I think the weird comes naturally. I get these images—the merman, the magic cactus—that make so much sense to me on an archetypal level. Sometimes, if I tell a writer friend my idea at the beginning phase of writing a novel, I’ll get a blank look. Recently, I was talking to my friend Ryan O’Connell, who writes for television and is very good at structure, about a germ I had for a novel involving an old woman riding a younger man around a supermarket with a floor covered in baked beans. He was like: “What’s the plot?” I was like, “That’ll come. But baked beans!”</i>

Yes, please to the baked beans 😹

A woman goes to a Best Western in the Nevada desert to get some time alone as her father lies dying in the hospital and her husband suffers chronic pain at home. She goes on a hiking trail and enters a mythical cactus where she relaxes, then not finding it one day carries on the trail, gets lost, and injures her ankle. We stay inside this woman's head as she thinks about her dying father, her annoying mother, and her sick husband. We go into her past and her hopes for the future. Later she deals with her own life and death as we listen in on her thoughts as she struggles to survive in the desert. I love survival stories and this one satisfied me but by including such characters as the talking rocks and the Best Western employee, it delighted me.

Melissa Broder does it again. Death Valley is a beautiful exploration of isolation, suffering, and loss. The way that Broder expresses vulnerability in the face of death is as refreshing as the giant cactus - precisely because she so accurately conveys the oppressive thoughts we all want to escape. Life COULD be a dream, and this book is a surreal reminder. I highly recommend this book to anyone experiencing grief and anxiety.

A surreal story that dives into themes of grief, love and existential dread. At times it felt a bit too obvious and tender, but the vulnerability was tangible throughout. It felt fitting to Broder's style of writing, a truly visceral experience even within a magical realism framework. I was a bit surprised at the ending and it kind of felt like it undercut the rest of the book, but overall I enjoyed it.

I went into this with high hopes but unfortunately it missed the mark for me. The serious, clairvoyant moments from our narrator are where the book is at its best - there's definitely an importance to highlighting the burnout and anticipatory grief that a lot of caretakers experience. With that said, these musings are far and few between, and the comedic tone of the writing feels so incredibly forced. Without enough contrast between serious and satire, this just feels forced and cringeworthy in its delivery.

The amount of brand references feels so American and out of place - maybe it's just the disconnect I have with the consumerist aspect of American culture? It felt so gimmicky and like an elongated ad campaign for Best Western. The novel itself feels like a short story that was drawn out to a novella without expanding the plot accordingly; it feels repetitive at best, and every minor characters exists as nothing more than comedic relief. If you re-wrote this novel without her husband or his illness, you'd effectively convey the same message and mitigate how trivializing the depiction of chronic illness is. I personally didn't enjoy the ending either - it feels too "safe" in a book that largely takes risks throughout.

With that said, I do want to highlight that I think there is a fair bit of creativity underpinning this story and I think the desert is the perfect setting to convey the theme of survival, loss and mourning. I have mixed feelings on this because I do think Broder is a talented writer and I don't think this is an objectively bad book; it has the usual elements I enjoy in fiction (introspective, surreal, emotional) but the delivery wasn't necessarily for me. I appreciate when authors take risks and flex their creativity - it may result in a book being (somewhat) polarizing, but I think it helps create something more unique and memorable. My personal enjoyment was a two star, but I would say the book is overall closer to a 3 star.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC!

A fantastic book! Already hand sold 3 copies at my bookstore - when it comes out in PB we'll select it as a Same Page book club pick. Thank you!

This is a story of grief! It employs a unique element of surrealism that is truly perplexing. Whether or not the main character is delirious hallucinatory in the desert, or is experiencing such complex internal fogginess, or that there is in fact a massive cactus that the main character has a nap inside of is a question that isn't answered. ! But it does shed light on what it's like to be navigating grief and confusion, love and loss, and complex family relationships (husband-wife, father-daughter).

While it was some fun to read this, it was also incredibly moving and wraps you into what it really does feel like to be handling such staggering life events all at the same time. It's strange but very real.

A hallucinatory daydream on grief and alienation in modern America. No one does it like Melissa Broder. Weird, funny and raw.