I love this! The writing is so witty, simultaneously funny and heartfelt. I really connected with the character, and the way she talked to herself, about herself, and about her surroundings was incredibly relatable. I absolutely loved the anthropomorphising of the rocks, mountains, bunnies in her vicinity - the way these sections were written felt so original, which is not an easy feat these days. And I loved that the character was doing this with the rocks even before she gets lost in the desert - showing that it isn't just a sign of her madness, but also just who she is as an interesting and lovable character. As she does get more and more lost, and more and more desperate, she never loses that spark that makes her so lovable. I will be recommending this to everyone I know!

I gave up on this book part way through as the representation of illness and disabiltiy felt unnuanced, misunderstood, and selfish,

Death Valley is an invigorating and beguiling fever dream of a story and I thoroughly adored it from start to finish. We follow our protagonist on a journey to the desert in the midst of turbulent personal crisis, a dying father and her chronically sick husband. Broder explores grief and different types of love in a beautiful, witty and brilliantly bizarre manner. Verging on fantastical, the entire novel reads like a drug-induced daydream and reads very easily without confusing the reader. I found this a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and the prose is concise, wasting no words. A truly excellent novel, perfect for fans of weird fiction, unreliable narrator and unhinged women.

Death Valley reads like a fever dream, it has shadows of nightbitch and bunny, with a very original and funny voice. The writing is light and easy to read, highly engaging, love both the plot and vibes. The metaphors behind about love, grief, dying are lovely written. A fresh take on writing about death, love and more. This is my first Melissa Broder and will not be my last!

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced e-copy!

i absolutely couldn't put this one down! broder explores grief, love, depression in her signature weird style. funny and refreshing

Bleak at times, and incredibly slow. I had hoped for it to be a bit more 'fun'. Could t get through it.

Wrong time, wrong book. My friends who also received this as an advanced review copy enjoyed this far more than I did, so it's definitely my problem. Perhaps this wasn't the best intro to Broder's writing for me. I hope to read it again on another day, but I'm sure I read it at a wrong time. A shame, as I had wanted to love it so desperately. Broder is one of those cool-gal novelists isn't she? I think stylistically it definitely worked for me, and it even reminded me a bit of Moshfegh and Miranda July to a certain extent, and I already love them both. But I think the plot in this particular Broder novel just didn't hold my interest at all. I'll try her other books for sure though.

'death valley' follows a woman seeking respite in the harsh californian desert as she navigates complicated feelings of anticipatory grief for her dying father.

with her dad in an ICU, her husband suffering from a debilitating chronic illness, and her phone signal depleting with every step further into the desert she takes, our narrator becomes increasingly overwhelmed and finds herself lost. powerless over her emotions and surroundings, and alone with her existential thoughts and dehydration, she starts hallucinating, and the boundaries between what is real, imagined, and magic, dissolve into madness.

this book was one of my most anticipated reads of the year bc i am a huge fan of broder's work and have been since the OG sosadtoday days, but i'm kinda disappointed??? i subconsciously went into it expecting themes similar to those centred in her previous works, and while it definitely shares their vulnerability, wit, and dark humour, it lacks their depth and irresistibility, in my opinion. i love broder's quintessential fever dream overtones and can endure magical realism to a point, but i found the juvenile cartoonish absurdism (the talking rocks, for example lol) really boring.

it is, however, a beautiful homage to broder's real dad, and a profound exploration of love, mortality, empathy, father-daughter relationships, and an intense longing to experience something beyond human capacity.

i won't read it again, but i'm glad i did.

A NEW FAVOURITE BOOK!

With this being my first Melissa Broder, I was incredibly excited and equally daunted after hearing such high praise for her works but this did NOT disappoint!

This was astounding, heartfelt, heartBREAKING, raw and equally gross in description. I adore fever dream novels and this spelled one that was perfect and equally unique! Existential, steeped in commentary on grief, beautifully written, fever dream and gross (don't read this if you have daddy issues)

I really struggled to finish this, but needed resolution. It's slow and repetitive in places, and very bleak.

This book wasn't really for me but that being said, I did enjoy it in places despite how bizarre it was.

I've read all of Melissa Broder's previous books but I think Death Valley was the one I least enjoyed. The prose was really solid but the book just didn't in any way stick with me. Perhaps it is due to the fact that it took so long for me to finish this book, but I felt that the book overall was a bit repetitive at times. Might be sometimes I will have to return to at a later date to fully appreciate it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc for sending me an advanced copy

I didn't know anything about this novel before I started reading it, which I think is a great way to approach a Melissa Broder novel. Once the surreal, psychedelic elements of the story started happening, I knew I was in safe hands and strapped in for the ride. A funny, sad meander through the desert and the experience of grieving.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder is trying so hard to be edgy and sharp but i found it irritating and contrived, sentence level and plot wise. the mc's internal monologue was desperately trying to be outrageous and wry a la fleabag but fails to actually be shocking or entertaining

In only a short space of time Melissa Broder is able to capture the many nuances of grief and depression in her self-centred writer-protagonist. Weaving strange dream elements with the complex family relationships Broder shows once again why she is such a readable and applauded novelist.

It's the first time I've read anything by Broder, and have to be honest the cover was my big draw to even reading the blurb but was pleasantly surprised that it sounded like up my alley and that the author hadn't been on my radar until now.

Death Valley is written from the perspective of the main character who is an author and long-term caregiver for her husband, whose father has just suffered a terrible car accident and is in ICU and subsequently has her own health crisis, landing up escaping to the desert as a form of respite as well as in a desperate attempt to get a break through for her next novel. The book whilst surreal and humorous at times, resonates with something a lot of us face in life the balance of tackling grief, the loss of a loved one and the way life can change immediately out of the blue. I can't help but think upon reading this book that Broder herself has some experience in those areas as it to me at least, really resonates with how it can feel trying to tackle life whilst everything around you changes overnight.

I have always been intrigued by Broder's books, and I even own a copy of The Pisces that I just haven't gotten around to yet, so I'm very glad I've finally read one of her works! I always like the premises of her books, of these average women dealing with life through bouts of surrealism as almost coping mechanisms to guide them through, and Broder's take on grief coming out through her mystical experiences in the desert, contrasted with the banality of the motel she resides in and her unfulfilling relationship with her husband at home was truly a great reading experience in Death Valley. The narrative voice of this unnamed protagonist felt so strong and relatable, that although she's clearly going through a terrible time in her personal life and coping in unbelievable ways, she also felt so understandable, and I have been thinking of her since I finished it.

Maintaining family relationships is hard work. Surviving in the desert is harder – but only just. This surrealist, darkly funny novel sets the mental challenge of grief against the sun-bleached, water-parched landscape of California’s Death Valley, the hottest place on earth. Our unnamed narrator, a forty-something-year-old writer, is struggling. Her husband is chronically unwell with a flu-like illness that has completely taken over his life, and five months ago her father was critically injured in a car accident in Los Angeles – he now lies in intensive care, leaving the narrator and her family stranded between worlds. Her father occasionally wakes for brief periods of time, only to fall back into unconsciousness, and the most recent round of these events have seen her run to the desert to escape the cycle and try to work on her stalled novel. She checks into a Best Western hotel just south of Death Valley, desperate to make progress on the book – and by extension, on herself.

After arriving she almost immediately receives a text from her mother: her father is awake again, but she should not come back. Our narrator calls to find out more about her father’s health, but her mother swiftly moves the conversation on to the apparent necessity of returning multiple pairs of sweatpants, and bats away any attempts to connect on a deeper, more emotional level – her mother is handling the crisis by staying busy and focusing on logistics, while our narrator, bewildered by her mother’s obsession with minutiae, is completely paralysed by the ebb and flow of her emotions. Who’s dealing with the situation better? What does it actually mean to handle something well?

Stricken by guilt for not being at her father’s bedside, consumed by self-loathing for finding her husband’s illness annoying, the narrator takes a suggestion from the hotel receptionist and goes for a hike in the desert. On the drive to the trailhead she listens to audiobooks about grief suggested by the r/deathanddying subreddit, which has told her that grieving her father before he’s actually passed away is by no means weird – and she wonders about looking for signs from her father, something to show her the way.

She starts off on the trail while texting her mother, who has messaged to say the sweatpants have finally been returned, and that she should be sure to take water on her hike. She hasn’t, but she lies about it to her mother, and doesn’t know why she does this. Annoyance makes her put her phone away, determined to connect with the experience of the natural world more fully – which is when she first spots the improbably enormous cactus that will become the scene of her unravelling, and her awakening.

This is a hugely moving book which asks questions about the everyday and the exceptional, and the way in which life is both at once: it is amazing that we are here at all, and yet losing someone important still feels like an otherworldly, impossible experience. We might feel in control of events – and yet all it takes to completely up-end our existence is a moment in which we miss a turning, stumble off the trail, and slip into another reality.

Featured in the October issue of Cambridge Edition magazine, print and online

My first read of Broder and I thought this was really great. Death Valley was a perfect blend of cynical and woo woo, both profound and hilarious.

Our narrator goes to a Best Western in the desert. She needs space from her Dad in the ICU, her chronically ill husband and her neurotic mother to work on her novel. (As an aside, the narrator’s love of Best Westerns had me cackling). While there, she finds a hollow cactus and climbs inside. She sees visions. She goes back the next day and…. Gets lost. Girlie! Why did you go to the desert without telling anyone! The desert makes her a bit loopy but this is where the real insight happens.

I read this not long after finishing Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America and would really recommend both together. Both works raise interesting questions about our connection with nature, the meaning of life, productivity as value etc.

TLDR; it’s magic, it’s a cactus

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I read this because I wanted to try Melissa Broder and I liked the premise, but Death Valley was just not my kind of thing at all! Should have guessed given that Melissa Broder writes weird magical realism fiction but oh well...