This was one of the most Melissa Broder things ever. So obviously I loved it.

I'm so glad I had read So Sad Today before this - I think it really helped add another angle to her connection to this character. She has such a way with writing what we're all thinking before we've realized we've thought it through. The focus on grief and overall human connection is so well done. I did feel pacing was a bit off sometimes but just when I'd start to feel a drag, she'd wrench me back in.

Death Valley was a wonderfully imagined desert fever dream clouded with anxiety and anticipation of grief. Having read a handful of other works by Broder, I knew from the get go that much of the novel would concentrate on chronic illness of loved ones. I genuinely enjoyed reading this, and was consistently intrigued by what new spiritual journey the protagonist would embark on with every page turn. In addition to the existential musings on grief and its anticipation, Broder crafted a witty, self-deprecating character. Bonus points for the recurring Carmela Soprano jokes. Overall, even though I do not typically enjoy magical realism or even topics of grief, but this honestly surprised me.

Thank you to Ms. Broder, Netgalley, and Scribner for the arc!

I never know what to expect from Melissa Broder but I am always pleasantly surprised! This book took a beautiful look at death, sickness and the loved ones that watch it all unfold. Weird and gorgeously written!

Melissa Broder!!!!!! What a terrifying and brilliant mind -- I've loved every one of her books, and DEATH VALLEY is no exception. I read this gripping story in one sitting, feeling feverish and teary. The novel takes a hard look at anticipatory grief (co-mingled with a difficult and distant relationship with a mentally unwell parent) and the tumult of loving a chronically ill spouse. Our unnamed narrator isn't a saint, but she isn't the terrible person she makes herself out to be--she does give voice to some feelings that many of us like to hide and ignore, which makes her story difficult to read. I suspect some readers will chafe at the narrator's trip to the desert: How selfish to run away for a 'vacation' in the midst of such tragedy! How dare she complain about her very ill husband! How horrible of her to grow bored and resentful at her father's deathbed! To those people, I say: how very lucky for you that you haven't yet experienced this situation.

Full disclosure, I read this book while on a grief trip of my own, and she nailed it.

Death Valley – Melissa Broder 4/5 ✨

I was absolutely thrilled to receive an advanced copy of Death Valley courtesy of NetGalley and Scribner – thank you!

A moderately successful author, our unnamed narrator is grappling with the possibility that her father is dying and a husband who has been severely ill for years. She seeks refuge and respite at a Best Western in the desert and decides she would like to try her hand at hiking and a feverish, bizzaro sort of vision quest ensues.

I know in my review of The Book of X I mentioned not being a fan of magical realism, but this book has made a liar of me. We have giant cactuses you can climb into, talking rocks, judgmental rabbits, a bird that may or may not be her father. Despite all of the absurdity, this is a very poignant story. I worked in hospice for many years and have seen my fair share of the spectrum grief people experience when their loved ones are ill or dying. Broder touches on the lesser known and more unsavory parts of that grief spectrum. The resentment towards the person who is ill, the tendency to inflate your presence in the end of life so that people know just how much you care, how quickly we focus on how difficult this is for us and then the immediate guilt that follows those thoughts. Heavy topics but there’s a lot of levity here.

Broder is SO funny sometimes, and I just don’t feel like people talk about that much! All of the bits I highlighted in this book were lines that made me cackle, including a multi paragraph tirade about the lack of urination in novels. It’s also always very fun to see thoughts you have had put into writing and there was a lot for me in Death Valley. 

I can’t wait to add a copy to my irl bookshelf!

This was a love letter to anticipatory grief and falling out of and in love with your spouse through the ups and downs of chronic pain/illness.

There was so much material that I highlighted. The writing was raw and beautiful, minimalist, exactly what I love in lit fic. To me it Broder writes with precision, evoking emotion while keeping the prose succinct - it’s brilliant.

It was truly so good
5 stars.

Wow, I loved this book so much. My favorite of Melissa Broder's thus far! She does such a great job of mixing in surreal elements while making every character feel so tangible. The perfect balance of weirdness and straightforward human experiences - I love how she's never afraid to share the less likable (but extremely common) personality traits and intrusive thoughts of her main character. Seeing how the main character processed and worked through the many things she was dealing with was so interesting and I truly couldn't put this one down.

Thank you to Netgalley for the E-arc of Death Valley. I gave this book 4 stars as it touches on topics like death, hospice care, and depression in an almost fun, psychedelic way. The story follows a woman who is grieving her not yet dead father and her chronically ill husband and she’s under immense pressure to finish a novel (I could have done without the book within a book trope). She escapes to the desert to get away and ends up in an acid trip-like hike without the drugs and ultimately gets lost in the desert. I had high hopes for the ending of this story, and it did not end how I was expecting or hoping. Nevertheless, this was a good read with even better subjects being covered. Also, I never remember Best Westerns being that great of a hotel chain?! Maybe I’ve been sleeping on them.

I love Melissa Broder, I adore her writing and I'm a huge fan of meditations on grief and death. However, I didn't end up loving this novel! Broder has such great lines that appear throughout the book that had my heart singing with a sense of found shared language. However, I couldn't get into this book. It's hard to judge a character that's grieving in their own way the potential death of father and the loss of a life they once shared with their husband, who is now bedridden due to their chronic illness. I understand that we only have one POV but it felt like a very selfish POV and I truly didn't enjoy my time with this character. At points, I truly wanted off this ride but held on for the wit that encompasses so many of Broder's novels. I think this novel felt self-indulgent in a way that I just didn't care to explore. I will continue to read Broder's books because she's brilliant but again, didn't love this one.

From the first page of this book, I was so hooked into the character’s personality and intrigued by how she was processing the world around her I would have been happy to read it no matter what happened. And, I never had any idea what was going to happen next. Death Valley follows a very surrealist story of life and death as a character dealing with managing her father and husband being sick goes hiking in the Palm Springs area.

Grief and grieving people before they are gone is a heavy aspect of this book, but is explored very much through the lens of the living and the life that has been shared between the characters. It also considers how much of what is going on with the grief and the fear of loss is going on within the main character’s head, precisely by telling a story that makes it unclear whether we’re living in a fantasy world or with a delusion in the characters’ head. I couldn’t wait to see how the story developed and what would happen next.

**Thank you so much to Netgalley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for an honest review**

Wow.. Unlike anything I've read, this book sucked me in from the very beginning. I was hooked based on their strange premise and realistic introspection of our main character, an unnamed woman on a trip in the California dessert to research a novel while dealing with a lot in her personal life. I was far more hooked in the first half of the novel than the second, which is why this was only 4 stars, but I still really enjoyed it. Things get pretty wacky toward the latter half of the story, but in an interesting and well-written way. I didn't 100% understand everything, but I didn't really mind that!

Definitely recommend for those looking for a unique and well-written story!

Death Valley gave a deep look into grief, self loathing, love and more. I’ve genuinely never read anything like this book and was hooked immediately. The setting of the desert was a perfect parallel to themes within. It was extremely introspective and expressed a wide range of personal emotions. I highly recommend this book and Melissa Broder as an author!

Death Valley stands as a luminous jewel, an iridescent testament to the literary prowess of Melissa Broder, who has now ascended to a hallowed realm within the pantheon of authors that I hold sacred, their words a siren call that compels me to heed without question. Like a pilgrim drawn to an oasis in the heart of desolation, Death Valley beckons, unfurling a tale that traverses the corridors of the soul with the grace of a desert wind sculpting the sand dunes of northern California.

Very interesting, nuanced and realistic characters. Funny observations. A quick read, but some sections in the desert journey were slow and a little bit too detached from the plot to keep me interested. Overall, a fun departure from my normal reads and very much in-line with Melissa Broder's funny, surreal, unique style of writing.

This felt like what I think a peyote trip would feel like in the most intriguing way possible. This is my first book by Melissa Broder and I am a fan. The humor that she inserted amid her more profound dialog was pretty striking. One of the main things that stood out to me though was how she was not afraid to get deeply into the more scary parts of ourselves. Being inside the main character's head was a trip on its own. Her fears of losing her dad, the struggles in her marriage, the insecurities within herself, the annoying parts of life, and her inner thoughts of self-loathing were very intriguing and interesting to read. I love how this author leaves a lot for interpretation. She doesn't just tell me in literal terms exactly how she is feeling, she paints a picture in the most abstract way. I loved that. There was wittiness coming from every angle in this novel that I would instantly go from a more silly feeling to heartfelt to sadness and so forth.

It would be very interesting to see this in a movie form. Overall I had such a great time with this book and if you are more into the metaphysical, magic realism, and suppositional way of storytelling, I would highly recommend it. Well, honestly to anyone, it's just so good!

4.5

Thank you to Netgalley for this copy. This novel comes out October 3, 2023, so keep your eye out for this one!

<i>Death Valley</i> follows a 41-year-old woman who has fled LA to a Best Western in the middle of the desert to escape her father's near passing under the guise of writing her new novel.

In true Broder fashion, the book is absurd and over the top, but it also feels like a deeply personal project, exploring grief and loss. I liked this aspect of the novel and thought that some of the conversations surrounding losing loved ones were poignant and touching. I quite enjoyed the first 30% or so of the novel, but then it took a turn that I wasn't really expecting and didn't love. It felt way too long and repetitive, even though this is a pretty short book. I understood the reason why that turning point happened, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

I will say, this feels like the most grounded Broder book, at least compared to <i>The Pisces</i> (which I like a lot more as time passes between reading it) and <i>Milk Fed</i> (did not like). Strange things happen, but it never felt as weird and absurd as I know Broder can be; so, this might be a good novel to start with if you want to get a taste of Broder's style.

Overall, I liked the main theme of the book, but didn't love the execution.

My first book by this author, so i wasn't sure what to expect, but I think it lived up to Melissa Broder's hype. I enjoyed it. It was truly a journey through death and dying and the feelings that go on between humans when they are faced with their mortality. The book is quite weird (lots of parenthesis tangents going on) but the character was so relatable. I also feel I should include that while I can personally relate to a lot of the book's subject matter going on in my own life right now, I did not cry at all, but I did laugh. So while it is a sad subject, it is handled with curiosity and a little humor.

"Death Valley" by Melissa Broder is a hauntingly beautiful exploration of grief that blurs the lines between reality and the metaphysical. The novel follows a woman seeking solace in a desolate California desert motel as she grapples with the impending loss of her father and the worsening illness of her husband. Broder's writing is a poetic symphony that resonates with the raw emotions of loss, using the desert landscape as a canvas for the protagonist's inner journey. The unexpected encounter with a mysterious cactus and the subsequent surreal experiences pull the reader into a world where pain and transcendence intertwine. Broder's prose weaves together the bleak and the luminous, making "Death Valley" a profound and enchanting exploration of the human experience.

A weird little book about grief and family. I really enjoyed and am already looking forward to Melissa Broder's next novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-copy.

I appreciated the surreal way the author approaches internal grief. The main character is caring for a chronically ill husband and dealing with her father's ongoing illness and potential death.
Everything I've read by Melissa Broder forces me out of my cookie cutter reading, which I enjoy sometimes. This is no different.