I’m judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

“Vik had woken feeling sick, or swindled, as if he’d just come out of a routine operation to find that one of his organs had been removed without his consent.”

This book was very difficult to follow. It seems I'm not the only one, now that I'm reading the other reviews here. The plot for this book sounded amazing. I like books that are quirky and a little out there. The pacing of the book was very draggy. I kept getting confused and distracted while reading this. This book definitely had promise, but ultimately, it was lacklaster.

Thank you, Netgalley and Henry Holt for the digital ARC.

American Delirium sounded right up my alley. I didn't end up liking this as much, especially considering I found it difficult to find the characters distinct in their voices.

It takes a few chapters to get going and to orient yourself in this skewed world with unusual goings-on, but once you appreciate what is happening it is hard to stop reading. Knowing that all these threads will eventually intertwine does take one out of the moment while doing prospective detective work but some worthwhile surprises do remain at the end, even if not entirely emotionally satisfying.

I really, REALLY wanted to enjoy this book but, I did not. The plot, the characters, the storyline was difficult to follow. I thought the book had potential murdering deer! I loved it. I thought it would be similar to a book I read by Olga Tokarczuk about deer 'hunting and killing' people. Instead, a hallucinogenic drug was involved?
Initially, I was drawn into Viks' story, finding a woman in a closet but, I had to wade through 3/4's of the book, to find out the rest of that story.
It seemed very disjointed to me, and a tedious jaunt through a ravaged world of characters, with no end in sight. The storyline rambled and I was desperate- searching for a morsel of hope to get me through to the end.
Sadly, there were no morsels to be found.
Thank you Netgalley and Henry Holt & Company for the opportunity to read and review this book.
jb
https://seniorbooklounge.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately, I had to mark this book as DNF at the 40% mark. The different narrators confused me, and I didn't feel drawn to the story. I had high hopes for this one and may revisit and push through it in the future.

I would have enjoyed this book probably more than I did now, if I were to pay full attention to it. It's not the book's fault; it's all mine. I just had hard time to be pulled into this storyline. Each chapter has 3 different PoV that are somewhat related but may or may not be obvious at the beginning. I enjoyed 3 different PoVs on their own; however, I missed what should have been an aha! moment connecting 3.

Each PoV has something to do with this hallucinogen called albaria. Apparently it causes this out of body experience for people who try it. One of the stories talks about a taxidermist who never tried albaria but had first hand experience of what it could do to people and/or animals. The other story talks about a lady and her friends who take it to themselves to reduce deer population in this particular woods. And the last story is about these people who decided to live in woods, consuming albaria.

Again, I would have enjoyed this story, if I could stay focused. But I think it has a different premise than most of the contemporary fiction novels. If you are into effects of hallucinogens and cultish behaviours, you might enjoy this book

A book of twists and turns . A world where animals are on the hunt and one unrepentant,defiant senior takes matters into her own hands. It is at times a chuckle that on the next page becomes a laugh that can burst unexpected. It’s a delight that offers insight into a typical Midwestern town with all the everyday mishaps that are the stuff of novelists everywhere. . It gives new meaning to suspect something’s in the water and all hell has broken loose.

This novel had 3 storylines and I felt invested in each one thanks to the author's ability to weave in and out of them so expertly. The premise is a unique one, but I love how it turned out!

The description sounded intriguing and like a wild ride.
The book itself is very strange and it also doesn't follow a "standard" novel timeline, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but while I was reading it I kept waiting for the main part of the book to happen - then realized that the main part was only described at the very end.
I liked the characters of Berenice, Beryl, and Vik. Everything in the book seemed a bit faraway and it was hard to become invested in anything that was happening.
There were parts that I tried to figure out as social commentary, and I think that Berenice and Vik played the biggest part in that - in exposing the "dropouts" and honestly everyone in the book who was obsessed with the magical drug plant. And it's use either for profit or for forgetting reality.
I like weird esoteric books, but this one fell a bit flat for me.

American Delirium is a delightfully bizarre novel that I enjoyed all the way through. What initially drew me in was the cast of characters who are so diverse, engaging, and well... absurd, that you're not sure what to believe or why you would believe it. The story is a bit confusing but honestly that's one of the things I enjoyed about it. As you keep reading the pieces fit so well that I think this will be a book I read over and over again.

4/5 Stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

“Fact. Getting old is living between semicolons, without redeeming paragraph breaks.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the first third of this novel, with its wry, penetrating commentary on human nature (think Matt Haig’s ‘The Humans’) and the vagaries of the aging process:

“…first, the under-eye serum, a must for every woman who didn’t want to hit forty looking like a used dishrag….Last came the night cream…which women who were too old to have children needed to apply with special care because they’d gone to a place of no return, a zone some people called the golden years and others just old age, and which Emma called the land of the walking dead.”
“Until all that proves useless, too. Like yoga, or mindfulness. Next come the doctors, nice young men and women usually worried about whales in the South Atlantic, who…will confirm the grim prognosis: there’s nothing left to look forward to.”

‘American Delirium’, Betina González’s debut English-language novel, tackles our relationship with the natural world, whether it’s possible to “get back to nature” and what “human nature” means:

“That might be how we lost paradise. Don’t you think? Once we began to anticipate, scrutinize -and, most of all, try to solve- death. What I mean is, that’s how we lost the last thing connecting us to the beasts.”
“We begin to grow weary….of so much jungle, so much green, of so much grandiose, monotonous, and savage beauty. The truth is we long for the ugliness of Man…What I would give for a bridge or even a fence to break up the landscape on occasion. I cannot but affirm that green is the most depressing of all colors.”

Unfortunately the story gets bogged down in multi-generational family and group dynamics. The plot wobbles a bit and the “reveal” at the end is something of a letdown.

The novel is redeemed at times by humorous observations such as:

“Those young folks who were so scandalized are the same ones who come to the benefit receptions at the museum, the ones who let their offspring rummage through the drawers in the gift shop and play hide-and-seek behind the sculptures on the ground floor. While their parents, armed with canapés and glasses of champagne save the world from genetically modified produce and stop the deforestation of the Amazon basin, their sticky little hands slide over century-old lamps, stain the curtains….and steal postcards.”

All in all there is enough here that I would read another of González’s novels, and hope more English-language translations are in the works.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to review the ARC via Netgalley.

At the outset, I was certain that I’d love this. Looney characters and delightful mix of premises: natural historian, manic deer, hippie commune, horticulturalist nightmare of a hallucinogen, and so on. But, sadly, I lost that ‘this is going to me good’ vibe and found myself fighting to get to the end.

I’m not entirely sure why. Some of the characters resonated, Vic in particular, but others seem inadequately developed. The plot itself lags as each chapters long digressive rambles inch the plot along. The detail in these digressions is often engaging, but left this reader frequently struggling to see where all this was going.

I agree with the cover blurb that this is an author of real promise. I hope the next from her benefits from the attentions of a stern editorial hand.

First off, I loved the writing in this, and I love the cover. However, the approach was just a smidge too absurdist-or delirious--for me to fully enjoy. It was still, for the most part, a very grounded book, but this sub-genre has to have truly excellent character development to draw me in, and the characters in this novel were just interesting enough, not excellent.

Thank you to Henry Holt Books for giving me an advanced copy of American Delirium in exchange for an honest review.

American Delirium tells a story from three different character perspectives, and is a dreamy story about a deer population that attacks, psychedelic drugs, hippie camps in the woods, and more.

I’ll be honest, this book wasn’t really for me. But, this book is well written and includes some great character building. It’s such a unique voice that reading it felt like an entirely new experience. I felt as though the plot wasn’t really a plot, but also the book IS mostly character driven and it IS called “American DELIRIUM” so I took that as a little reading guide.

You will LOVE American Delirium if:

-You love character driven novels
-You love a completely unique cast of characters
-You love character developments
-You love books with loose plots
-You love books where you never know what’s really going on until the end
-You love a totally unique plot (with lots of subplots)
-You love thoughtful and beautiful writing

I didn't finish this one. Too confusing and couldn't keep me interested. The storyline sounded interesting, but fell flat, sadly.

This book is well written and has good character development I just couldn’t personally get into the story and found it a little bit of a struggle to keep reading. In the end it does wrap up everything and answers the questions you have, just left a little lacking for me personally. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

American Delirium is brilliant. I loved this look at daily life through the lens of interwoven mythic elements. A book to be read slowly, reread, and shared, with powerful questions of place and identity considered in prose form.