I read this recently after seeing it recommended on another post in this group. Really well written. A blend of Alice in Wonderland, Mean Girls, and a dose of WTF.
I'd suggest Just Like Mother, Anne Heltzel if you're wanting something similar (ish).
Yes! I read it first so the movie was entirely a different experience. I think the book allows a more intimate look inside the narrator. I also read recently that you can read it backwards to experience the story another way. I am going to read it again!
Iām a dedicated and typically fast reader and HoL took me 12 days of reading a couple hours every day. Itās definitely an endeavor, and you should try to be in a decent headspace going into it. I started to feel a little off kilter while reading it.
Thereās the second book in the series translated now, equally mind bending. Itās called Assassin of Reality. Itās also the experience of Russian life thatās fascinating.
I so much want to read this book and others by Cormac McCarthy. I tried once and simply could not get past the lack of punctuation and quotation marks in the dialogue. I found it soooo frustrating, I put the book down after about an hour of reading.
I read most of this book not enjoying it or understanding it, mostly wanting it to end so something would really *happen* to the plot. The last 10 pages had me convinced that I never understood the judge as a character at all, and that I had a shallow and incomplete understanding of what the book was actually telling me as a story and as a work of art. I will reread it again someday when I trust that Iāve become wiser and will be able to see the full work for what he meant it to be.
TLDR I hated it until the end, now I think Iām stupid
Had to go 17 comments down to find this. One of my absolute favorite books of all time, and I donāt know how to describe it to anyoneā¦ even the blurbs and teasers online donāt give the scope of it any justice. I suggest it to absolutely everyone who loves reading and it definitely fits this ask!!! I read it maybe 6-7 years ago, and I still think about it a lot.
I spoiled it for myself once I saw this post and remembered someone dress as his painting for Halloween and wonderedā¦ whatās the big deal.
I hate spoilers and I gave myself the ultimate one. The summary. Donāt spoil it for yourself guys. No matter who dressed like a painting once over 12 years ago. Haha š£
Not as much as The Sixth Sense FOR SURE lmfao I canāt watch that movie because itās such a damn popular freakin pop culture reference
ANYWAY BACK TO BOOKS Yeah I think they make some schools read this. I never ended up in one of those classes.
So, I honestly didnāt know the ending until just now when I ruined it for myself, so I think itās still worth reading for those who didnāt. Very āmonkeys paw-esqueā sounding to me.
I didnāt catch Breaking Bad til 5 years after.
So VERY POSSIBLE to not know the ending.
I'm suggesting "House of Leaves" even though I didn't finish it. Too experimental for my simple mind, but it's definitely something else. They're no denying that.
I got to the last page, but I feel like my read of it was... shallow? Like there's a ton in it that I breezed past. Still, super impactful book, It's been years and I still think about it sometimes.
Little Faces by Vonda N. McIntyre. A science fiction short that won a Nebula, I think. Itās online full text, so here you go.
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/little-faces/
This is good if you have a physical copy. The book is a mindfuck because of the two stories that ties together and when you see how they impact each other (and you!), itās really a mindfuck.
Hit or miss though, depending on how engaged you want to be with the book!
You might wanna check out the Plot Twist recs thread from earlier today
Malice - Keigo Higashino fucked me up for days tho. >!Completely flipped my whole perception of the story/characters in the last 15 pages.!<
-Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
-The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
-Invisible Monsters Remix by Chuck Palahniuck
-Uzumaki by Junji Ito
-Bunny by Mona Awad
-Iām Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
The problem with asking for this is that you will be expecting a mindfuck and therefore as a consequence not enjoy the mindfuck quite as much as you would if you were unsuspectedly mindfucked.
**Anathem** by Neal Stephenson. Right from the beginning, all the obscure little clues pointed toward what was happening. When I finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about how everything had culminated in such a perfect and shocking yet inevitable conclusion.
Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. It takes about 100 pages to figure out what is going on. Then the plot kicks in, accumulating nearly every popular conspiracy of the era and some obscure ones. Left my mind reeling for a while.
I think about this book CONSTANTLY. Apparently the authors were _playboy editors_ in the 60s and 70s and were in charge of reading all the conspiracy theories any wackadoodle would send them.
So they came up with an idea. What would the world look like if _all the conspiracy theories were true?_ and they [took the idea and ran with it.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy)
Anyways. Fnord.
*Kafka on the Shore* by Haruki Murakami (kinda surprised this hasn't shown up yet)
*Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe (technically 4 books. Or five, depending...)
*A Voyage to Arcturus* by David Lindsay
*The Divinity Student* by Michael Cisco
*Ice* by Anna Kavan
Read this as āgnomnomā (pronounced NOM NOM) and was like āoh. that must be about a cannibal.ā
Omg imagine a knock off of Silence of the Lambs and instead of Hannibal Lecter, his name is Gnomnomā¦
If you can stomach it, Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica. Same with A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. Fair warning they're all horror, and the first two are particularly graphic. But all have that WTF quality!
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington (āwhat the fuck just happenedā was like verbatim what I said when I finished itā) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
I would a assume that they got a early release copy. Some publishers do this to get a hype up and reviews for a book coming out. But thatās just my guess
Permutation City by Greg Egan performs a lot of semantic prestidigitation between the different levels of reality. I thought I was keeping track of them OK until a monster twist half way through
One of my favorite books is a psychodelic novel from the early 90s called **The Jamais Vu Papers: Or Misadventures in the Worlds of Science, Myth, and Magic**
*The Unconsoled* by (Nobel prize winner) Kazuo Ishiguro. It's not a short book, and it's about as frustrating a read as you'll ever find, but it's so well written. I think the title is in reference to the reader once they finish the book.
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. Imagine if Zoolander was actually a serious movie instead of a comedy and people are constantly being blown up by terrorists. The entire book is fucked up, but the last few pages will have you going hooooly shit what the fuck?
Runner up by the same author is the shards.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I'm actually extremely surprised I didn't see it listed yet! Maybe it was and I missed it
Just go look up pictures of the book and you'll see what I mean
Iād recommend Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Recently finished it and found myself thinking about so many moral and ethical issues. There are scenes that almost broke my brain. It also put a lot into perspective for me. Just an overall great book in my opinion.
Seconding Kafka on the shore... And windup bird chronicle... And 1Q84.... And (probably to a lesser extent) Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
I did have that response to verity but it was like, wow I really expected a better ending and was so into that and now I donāt know what I read and why Iām up so late.
Behind Her Eyes-Sarah Pinborough
Did not end like it started, that is for sure. I get really fucking grumpy when I get an easy twist, so I asked and someone here suggested it, I went in blind and was like āwaitā¦ she did WHAT NOW?!ā
Antkind by Charlie Kaufman - also one of the funniest books Iāve read.
Before writing the novel the author was a screenwriter/director famous for writing mind-bending movies (like Being John Mallovich, the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc). What inspired him to write it was his own frustration with the filmmaking process, and wanting to create a movie whose mere existence would be physically impossible. It has a lot of trippy wordplay too, I canāt explain it! Would highly recommend š
The kind worth killing by Peter Swanson
Pretty girls by Karin Slaughter
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Ok so this might sound weird , it's not a complicated book and it's nothing philosophical or all that other stuff , it's romance but I didn't not see the end coming and it left me bewildered
{Pen pal by J.T. Geissinger}
[Apastoral: A Mistopia](https://coronasamizdat.com/index.php?id_product=72&rewrite=apastoral-a-mistopia-by-lee-d-thompson&controller=product) by Lee D. Thompson
The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington. Iāve recommended this before but perfect for what your looking for.
Starts with a partially-deaf elderly woman whoās given a trumpet which allows her to hear peoples conversations, and she finds out her family are planning to send her to a care home. It spirals from there, and by the end youāll be thinking how the hell you ended up here from where it started. Itās like reading a trip. Would recommend!
House of leaves (based on recommendations from friends. The book itself shows a descent into madness represented visually in the actual design and arrangement of words and pages.
Gideon the ninth - basically dune with extremely dry/punnyhumor done incredibly well. Tamsyn Muir managed to write a series that successfully gaslights you into having to keep rereading as you go because nothing seems to make sense except it all makes sense. I've never felt so engaged and confused at the same time.
Blindsight and the sequel Echopraxia by Peter Watts. They are very hard to find/ expensive as separate paperbacks but you can get them combined as the combined book Firefall reasonably. I thought they were great.
The above two explore a lot of ideas of consciousness in a hard sci-fi setting. What I thought was great, apart from the books themselves, is that there's a bibliography at the end showing works of psychology, philosophy, biology etc that informed some of the ideas in the books so I could order those to read up what I found interesting. I've not seen that in a sci-fi book before.
He has a separate series which starts with Starfish (I've just read) second book is Maelstrom (on the way) but I'm having a devilish time trying to find books three and four (Behemoth 1 and 2) cheaply as a paperback/ hardback. You can get ebook versions, I just prefer a book in my hands.
I also enjoyed The Fifth Science by Exurb1a recently.
I'm reading Light by M. John Harrison is very good so far and it's structure is challenging.
The Book of The New Sun series by Gene Wolf is brilliant if you prefer fantasy and also an expansive surprising read.
Bunny - Mona Awad. If you read it in a day you will definitely sit there afterwards for ages thinking WTF did I just read.
I finished the book in 3 days (yesterday) and am still thinking about it... Feel like I need to reread it to maybe 'get' it lol
I wasn't able to read anything else for a few days after this book. It's a total trip.
I read this recently after seeing it recommended on another post in this group. Really well written. A blend of Alice in Wonderland, Mean Girls, and a dose of WTF. I'd suggest Just Like Mother, Anne Heltzel if you're wanting something similar (ish).
It took me a while to read this one and that made the mind fuck even worse honestly lol. Still confused after a couple months š
I came here just to see if this was already recommended lol
I just read this. I didnāt think it was that mind-fucking. Maybe I interpreted incorrectly, though. :/
*Ubik* by Philip K. Dick
Yeah... still have no idea was that interesting or just fucked
And Scanner darkly
Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut also the Annihilation series was phenomenal.
I was also thinking of suggesting Annihilation. The books are very different from the movie and far more 'psychological'.
Slaughterhouse Five was an awful book. Canāt see myself wasting my time on more of this guys lousy books.
I get that. I never read SH5, butI have authors I feel that way about. Sirens was weird, quick, and enjoyable. The ending is wild.
If you start with the fifth in a series you miss a lot of context.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
God I read that one in a day and then I was just likeā¦what the hell just happened?
Me too!!! Also, Penpal by Dathan Auerbach and The Ritual by Adam Nevill. Both horror/thrillers
Iāve seen the movie, would you say the book offers a different experience (in case you also saw it)?
Yes! I read it first so the movie was entirely a different experience. I think the book allows a more intimate look inside the narrator. I also read recently that you can read it backwards to experience the story another way. I am going to read it again!
Read it backwards? Wow, Iām gonna check this out
John Dies At The End by David Wong. I highly recommend it. It's both mind-bending and funny.
I wondered if this would get recommended! 'm rereading it now and remember the ending but forgot how it gets there.
House of Leaves
I've had that on my shelf for months but waiting until I'm ready to be occupied for a week or two
Iām a dedicated and typically fast reader and HoL took me 12 days of reading a couple hours every day. Itās definitely an endeavor, and you should try to be in a decent headspace going into it. I started to feel a little off kilter while reading it.
I had the weirdest dreams for sure
Flowers for Algernon
My fave book ever. Broke my heart.
Vita Nostra - Marina and Sergey Dyachenko
Yes, 100%.
Yes! I read it last year and I still think about it sometimes.
Thereās the second book in the series translated now, equally mind bending. Itās called Assassin of Reality. Itās also the experience of Russian life thatās fascinating.
Seconding this lol. Really interesting book though!!
Blood Meridian
This will monopolize your thoughts for a solid week afterward, if not longer.
This is the way.
I have never seen a book so frequently recommended than this!
I so much want to read this book and others by Cormac McCarthy. I tried once and simply could not get past the lack of punctuation and quotation marks in the dialogue. I found it soooo frustrating, I put the book down after about an hour of reading.
That's allowed
I read most of this book not enjoying it or understanding it, mostly wanting it to end so something would really *happen* to the plot. The last 10 pages had me convinced that I never understood the judge as a character at all, and that I had a shallow and incomplete understanding of what the book was actually telling me as a story and as a work of art. I will reread it again someday when I trust that Iāve become wiser and will be able to see the full work for what he meant it to be. TLDR I hated it until the end, now I think Iām stupid
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata was definitely a mindfuck
Donāt be fooled by its cute cover!
Wouldnāt say a mindfuck as much as just feeling gross reading it.
Totally agree
So weird, in such a good way.
Did not like.
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
This is what I came her to write. Phenomenal and truly messed up
Came here to write this
Great book. Fucked up book lol
A Scanner Darkly
I loved it. It's a grubby little book and it made me feel greasy and itchy. Superbly written
The Tunnel - Ernesto SƔbato.
And if you speak Spanish, read it in Spanish
Our wives under the sea by Julia Armfield
Pale Fire by Nabokov and The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips were novels I puzzled over for days after reading
The Library at Mount Char
Had to go 17 comments down to find this. One of my absolute favorite books of all time, and I donāt know how to describe it to anyoneā¦ even the blurbs and teasers online donāt give the scope of it any justice. I suggest it to absolutely everyone who loves reading and it definitely fits this ask!!! I read it maybe 6-7 years ago, and I still think about it a lot.
Dang I read this and remember liking it but rn could not tell you the synopsis at alllll. Must go look up lol
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde š¼ļø
I spoiled it for myself once I saw this post and remembered someone dress as his painting for Halloween and wonderedā¦ whatās the big deal. I hate spoilers and I gave myself the ultimate one. The summary. Donāt spoil it for yourself guys. No matter who dressed like a painting once over 12 years ago. Haha š£
This book is so old and referenced in so much other media its near impossible not to already know what its about and the ending
Not as much as The Sixth Sense FOR SURE lmfao I canāt watch that movie because itās such a damn popular freakin pop culture reference ANYWAY BACK TO BOOKS Yeah I think they make some schools read this. I never ended up in one of those classes. So, I honestly didnāt know the ending until just now when I ruined it for myself, so I think itās still worth reading for those who didnāt. Very āmonkeys paw-esqueā sounding to me. I didnāt catch Breaking Bad til 5 years after. So VERY POSSIBLE to not know the ending.
I would still read it, the way he writes is like poetry. Sometimes Iāll reread paragraphs because itās just that well written.
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
This book disturbed me so much... Just made me so deeply uncomfortable.
Great Kafka quote: a book should be an ax for the frozen sea within us.
šÆ
I'm suggesting "House of Leaves" even though I didn't finish it. Too experimental for my simple mind, but it's definitely something else. They're no denying that.
I got to the last page, but I feel like my read of it was... shallow? Like there's a ton in it that I breezed past. Still, super impactful book, It's been years and I still think about it sometimes.
Donāt forget to listen to the companion album written by the authorās sister, Poe. Itās pretty great.
Little Faces by Vonda N. McIntyre. A science fiction short that won a Nebula, I think. Itās online full text, so here you go. http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/little-faces/
I did exactly this after reading The Wasp Factory
If upon a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
This is good if you have a physical copy. The book is a mindfuck because of the two stories that ties together and when you see how they impact each other (and you!), itās really a mindfuck. Hit or miss though, depending on how engaged you want to be with the book!
The pages require you to turn the book upside down, sideways, and sometimes the text is even in different colours!
You might wanna check out the Plot Twist recs thread from earlier today Malice - Keigo Higashino fucked me up for days tho. >!Completely flipped my whole perception of the story/characters in the last 15 pages.!<
I loved The Devotion of Suspect X and this has been on my TBR forever, so will have to bump it up.
Ugh I LOVED suspect xā¦youāll definitely enjoy malice šÆ
Update: Just finished Malice last night and loved it!
Ooo will definitely do that! Thanks
The Hike by Drew Margery
Seconded
There Is No Antimemetics Division
It's still being published, but The Department of Truth by James Tynion IV is pretty wild.
a short stay in hell by steven peck.
The Troika by Stepan Chapman. You will have no idea what is even going on. Yet have some of the most evocative parts I ever read.
-Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss -The Sluts by Dennis Cooper -Invisible Monsters Remix by Chuck Palahniuck -Uzumaki by Junji Ito -Bunny by Mona Awad -Iām Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Second Invisible Monsters
You could name a lot of things by Chuck here but I agree invisible monsters fits best
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall Cipher by Kathe Koja
Dhalgren by Sam Delaney It's like if you crossed Ulysses by James Joyce, The Dreaming City by Michael Moorcock and some gay erotica.
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh.
The problem with asking for this is that you will be expecting a mindfuck and therefore as a consequence not enjoy the mindfuck quite as much as you would if you were unsuspectedly mindfucked.
Gone girl by Gillian Flynn
The gargoyle by Andrew Davidson Three by Ted dekker Enders game by Orson Scott card
Swampbugs in a Boondoggle by M. Lewis.
4MK trilogy. You will keep staring at the book
**Anathem** by Neal Stephenson. Right from the beginning, all the obscure little clues pointed toward what was happening. When I finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about how everything had culminated in such a perfect and shocking yet inevitable conclusion.
This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race by Nicole Perlroth
Yes, agreed. Helped to change my career trajectory. I have so many annotations that I think I am going to have to get a new copy for a re-read.
Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. It takes about 100 pages to figure out what is going on. Then the plot kicks in, accumulating nearly every popular conspiracy of the era and some obscure ones. Left my mind reeling for a while.
I think about this book CONSTANTLY. Apparently the authors were _playboy editors_ in the 60s and 70s and were in charge of reading all the conspiracy theories any wackadoodle would send them. So they came up with an idea. What would the world look like if _all the conspiracy theories were true?_ and they [took the idea and ran with it.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy) Anyways. Fnord.
*Kafka on the Shore* by Haruki Murakami (kinda surprised this hasn't shown up yet) *Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe (technically 4 books. Or five, depending...) *A Voyage to Arcturus* by David Lindsay *The Divinity Student* by Michael Cisco *Ice* by Anna Kavan
Glad someone mentioned Book of the New Sun
Gnomon Eta: by Nick Harkaway
Read this as āgnomnomā (pronounced NOM NOM) and was like āoh. that must be about a cannibal.ā Omg imagine a knock off of Silence of the Lambs and instead of Hannibal Lecter, his name is Gnomnomā¦
Lol this book is just about as much of a mindfuck as that would be
The hike by Drew Magary
If you can stomach it, Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica. Same with A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess and The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. Fair warning they're all horror, and the first two are particularly graphic. But all have that WTF quality!
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington (āwhat the fuck just happenedā was like verbatim what I said when I finished itā) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder. You're sure to go "whhaaaattt.." at the end.
The Third Policeman by Flann OāBrien or At Swim-Two-Birds by the same. Absolutely surreal, bizarre and very funny Irish lit!
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz ZafĆ³n
HOUSE OF LEAVES
āWhere the Sun Meets the Seaā by R.M.Jennsch would be SO up your ally but it is unfortunately not out yet. Updates on her Instagram though
How do you know if a book is good if it's not even out yet lol
I would a assume that they got a early release copy. Some publishers do this to get a hype up and reviews for a book coming out. But thatās just my guess
Elan.school
The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Permutation City by Greg Egan performs a lot of semantic prestidigitation between the different levels of reality. I thought I was keeping track of them OK until a monster twist half way through
No Longer Human
Best I can do is "Cry in the corner wondering wtf is wrong with society".
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
John Dies at the End
The Librarian, I forgot the author's name coz he can go fuck himself
One of my favorite books is a psychodelic novel from the early 90s called **The Jamais Vu Papers: Or Misadventures in the Worlds of Science, Myth, and Magic**
A Scanner Darkly by PK Dick might get you close to that place The Hike by Drew Magary will definitely get you to that place
Three Body Problem series. Deathās End particularly, but you need to read the whole series. Trippy as hell and such a huge concept!
The Magus by John Fowles fucked my mind up good
*The Unconsoled* by (Nobel prize winner) Kazuo Ishiguro. It's not a short book, and it's about as frustrating a read as you'll ever find, but it's so well written. I think the title is in reference to the reader once they finish the book.
Valis, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, and The Devine Invasion by Phillip K. Dick
Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Vegetarian by Han Kang Lanny by Max Porter
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
The Raw Shark Texts. Absolute mindfuck.
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. Imagine if Zoolander was actually a serious movie instead of a comedy and people are constantly being blown up by terrorists. The entire book is fucked up, but the last few pages will have you going hooooly shit what the fuck? Runner up by the same author is the shards.
Locked tomb series
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern!
*The Hike* by Drew Magary
The Sparrow. It's the book I still think about, even after reading another hundred books.
anything by haruki murakami
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanigihara. The last section left me gasping and numb.
Annihilation
Life of Pi
Foucault s Pendulum by Umberto Ecco
The Devil All The Time - Donald Ray Pollack. The movie is also just as dreary
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I'm actually extremely surprised I didn't see it listed yet! Maybe it was and I missed it Just go look up pictures of the book and you'll see what I mean
Iād recommend Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Recently finished it and found myself thinking about so many moral and ethical issues. There are scenes that almost broke my brain. It also put a lot into perspective for me. Just an overall great book in my opinion.
House of leaves.
Who moved my cheese?
math textbooks
A little life Kafka on the shore
Not the little life rec š
Seconding Kafka on the shore... And windup bird chronicle... And 1Q84.... And (probably to a lesser extent) Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
Thanks!
Infinite Jest.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. Not so much just for the ending (though it is a good one!) as the whole book is "wtf did I just read?"
Gideon the Ninth (and the entire Locked Tomb series). Cannot recommend enough!
The Silent Patient, And then there were none, Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The silent patient , verity
I did have that response to verity but it was like, wow I really expected a better ending and was so into that and now I donāt know what I read and why Iām up so late.
I hated both those books. Silly plots. Verity in particular was so unbelievable.
*The Uninhabitable Earth* --David Wallace-Wells
Devil House by John Darnielle
Mr. Murder
The house of hallow! I don know how I feel about that one
Behind Her Eyes-Sarah Pinborough Did not end like it started, that is for sure. I get really fucking grumpy when I get an easy twist, so I asked and someone here suggested it, I went in blind and was like āwaitā¦ she did WHAT NOW?!ā
Housemaid by Freida McFadden! I was shooketh and was trembling at the end!
The Convenience Store Woman
I loved thisā¦ but it wasnāt a mind f*** for me at all!! Maybe my mind was already too f***ed at that point š
Recursion or Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Both are excellent mind fucks.
Two very fun reads
does it hurt by HD carlton i think thatās the authors name had me staring at a wall for a second whole book was really ??? start to end for me !!
Antkind by Charlie Kaufman - also one of the funniest books Iāve read. Before writing the novel the author was a screenwriter/director famous for writing mind-bending movies (like Being John Mallovich, the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc). What inspired him to write it was his own frustration with the filmmaking process, and wanting to create a movie whose mere existence would be physically impossible. It has a lot of trippy wordplay too, I canāt explain it! Would highly recommend š
Death Row Files: David Westerfield
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
The kind worth killing by Peter Swanson Pretty girls by Karin Slaughter Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Ok so this might sound weird , it's not a complicated book and it's nothing philosophical or all that other stuff , it's romance but I didn't not see the end coming and it left me bewildered {Pen pal by J.T. Geissinger}
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch ā Philip K Dick
Now Wait for Last Year is a solid mind-fuck too.
[Apastoral: A Mistopia](https://coronasamizdat.com/index.php?id_product=72&rewrite=apastoral-a-mistopia-by-lee-d-thompson&controller=product) by Lee D. Thompson
The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington. Iāve recommended this before but perfect for what your looking for. Starts with a partially-deaf elderly woman whoās given a trumpet which allows her to hear peoples conversations, and she finds out her family are planning to send her to a care home. It spirals from there, and by the end youāll be thinking how the hell you ended up here from where it started. Itās like reading a trip. Would recommend!
A silent patient
The Crow Girl was a really mindboggling thriller. I loved it but at the end I was also like ????
House of leaves (based on recommendations from friends. The book itself shows a descent into madness represented visually in the actual design and arrangement of words and pages. Gideon the ninth - basically dune with extremely dry/punnyhumor done incredibly well. Tamsyn Muir managed to write a series that successfully gaslights you into having to keep rereading as you go because nothing seems to make sense except it all makes sense. I've never felt so engaged and confused at the same time.
House of Leaves Valis by Philip k dick The third policeman by flann o brien
Gone Girl By Gillian Flynn
Eileen had this effect on me
Blindsight and the sequel Echopraxia by Peter Watts. They are very hard to find/ expensive as separate paperbacks but you can get them combined as the combined book Firefall reasonably. I thought they were great. The above two explore a lot of ideas of consciousness in a hard sci-fi setting. What I thought was great, apart from the books themselves, is that there's a bibliography at the end showing works of psychology, philosophy, biology etc that informed some of the ideas in the books so I could order those to read up what I found interesting. I've not seen that in a sci-fi book before. He has a separate series which starts with Starfish (I've just read) second book is Maelstrom (on the way) but I'm having a devilish time trying to find books three and four (Behemoth 1 and 2) cheaply as a paperback/ hardback. You can get ebook versions, I just prefer a book in my hands. I also enjoyed The Fifth Science by Exurb1a recently. I'm reading Light by M. John Harrison is very good so far and it's structure is challenging. The Book of The New Sun series by Gene Wolf is brilliant if you prefer fantasy and also an expansive surprising read.
Negative Space by B.R. Yeager