4.5 -- looooved it. was definitely not what i expected (tho i'm not really sure what i expected), but maybe i liked that about it. tbd.

this was a very creative and contemplative exploration of grief. i kind of wanted more from it at times, it felt like it was going rly imaginative and symbolic and then more or less became more of a survival story? idk. i also feel like i didn't care for the weird comparison of the husbands vs the fathers illnesses. seemed weirdly established, though both clearly offered a lot of their own unique insight and introspection.

i feel like everything melissa broder is so ridiculously honest - in a way that can sometimes even be off-putting, but overall works really, really well for me. this wasn't my fav from her but not my least fav either. definitely reminded me more of her personal essays than her other works of fiction. i think a lot of folks will love it.

thank you thank you thank you net galley and scribner! this was one of my most anticipated reads of this year and it did not disappoint

Late in the book, the narrator's husband walks in on her talking to a flower.

""Who were you talking to?" he asks.
"Just myself, " [she says]. "You know how self-involved I can be.""

I'm sure many people will read this book and find her self-involved, but I think more will relate to her plight. She's stuck in the liminal space between life and death. Her dad has coded twice and been resuscitated. She can't grieve him yet; she's pre-grieving. And her husband is sick with some identifiable illness. She is able-bodied, but when two of the rocks in your life need your support, the pressure can be suffocating. So she escapes to the desert.

I could have done without the book-within-a-book the narrator is writing, which mirrors the story the narrator is living. I've read that plot-point enough times, and it seems like every other book I pick up these days is about a writer. The hallucinatory elements didn't quite work for me, though I did like this book more than any of Broder's prior novels.

Three and a half stars.

Death Valley is a bizarre, darkly humorous read, a bit meta, sad and also hopeful. It feels like it came from a very personal and vulnerable place from the writer and I wonder if it’s not somewhat autobiographical.

In this story our unnamed protagonist takes a trip to a Best Western in the dessert to ostensibly work on her novel but is also avoiding the anticipatory grief of her fathers death and feelings of guilt over her husband’s chronic illness. She hikes on a trail which leads to an enormous cactus which may or may not really exist and eventually ends up on a surreal dessert survival journey with talking rocks, “pee canon”, and teen bunnies while coming to terms with her feelings toward death and mortality. I really enjoyed it and the relationship between the father and daughter and their “language of love” felt really poignant and had me tearing up. I love Melissa Broders writing and this was no exception.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Death Valley follows an unnamed narrator as she navigates trying to write a novel amidst worrying about her ailing father in the hospital who has died and been brought back to life twice, as well as an ill and bedridden husband, a highly superstitious mother, and a sister with a new baby. Our protagonist sets out for the California desert under the guise of novel research when she seems to be retreating from the troubles surrounding her life. Staying at a Best Western, she gets the advice to go on an easy hiking trail from one of the hotel's front desk employees, where she finds a colossal cactus that launches us into a tumultuous ride from here on out, i.e., talking rocks, a Mustache Oriole, and teenage bunnies. Death Valley is darkly hilarious, weird, sad, and hopeful.

As a fan of The Pisces, I knew I was in for a treat when I was given the chance to read an early copy of Death Valley. The concept of following a woman in her 40s as she gets lost in the desert while dealing with grief over her ill father and husband was immediately of interest to me. Melissa Broder's unique style took this plot and turned it into an extremely interesting fiction novel! I enjoyed it from beginnign to end.
Overall this book was full of dark humor, while also making you think about the ways a person can deal with grief. I would reccomend this to a friend.

3.5

I wasn’t expecting Jack London in the California desert dealing with grief. This is a book where I enjoyed the first half more than the second.

An author goes to a Best Western (her favorite chain) for a week in an attempt to finish her next novel (this gets a bit meta throughout the novel). Her father has been in the ICU for months and her husband has a worsening chronic illness. She’s suffering from anticipatory grief for her father and guilt over her thoughts towards her husband. This is overwhelming her and I can feel the struggles in the writing. Here we see some of that classic Broder - witty observations and horniness.

She hikes on a trail where she runs into a giant cactus, that may or may not be there, and enters it as one does. She has a bit of a trip even though she’s sober and starts to visit that cactus again and again. On her last day, she decides to go back one more time to visit the cactus and instead ends up on the worst hike, where everything goes wrong. As someone who’s not a survivalist I can relate to all the mishaps (but I definitely would have brought more water). The magical surrealism picks up as the book starts to drag. Maybe it got a little too woo-woo or lessony for me? While I empathized with the character in the beginning (a lot of that part hit close to home), towards the end I had no emotional attachment.

I would still say that Broder created a very real and human character. You do have to fight to get through it.

Total aside - a broken tibia with no surgery? And then she lays on her side with a broken ankle in an aircast? In what world!? Lol my poor ankle aches thinking about those days

I want to give Melissa Broder a copy of the Four Agreements and a hug after finishing this, because grief sucks, and I wish her strength. But this was extremely stressful to read especially near the end, mostly because it was hard to see someone so woefully unprepared to venture into the desert. She's self-aware of how her pestering questions can come across as annoying or too extra, but that didn't really help her case for me, and I found myself rolling my eyes in the same parts her husband or dad did.

This book might be too online for my taste. I did laugh out loud a few times and I appreciated some of the insights and descriptions of cacti and desert, and her attempt at starting a "pee canon", though overall, I'm left feeling a little perplexed about the point of this. Though this is technically a fictional book, it's obviously autobiographical, and it was a self-indulgent and self-serving book without much insight left for readers.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an early copy of the book in return for an honest review.

“"Help me not be empty," I say to god in the Best Western parking lot.”

Absolutely no idea what I just read but it made me giggle and think about things I don’t usually think about. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I read this again? Probably not.

3.5/5

While I don't usually like comparing works by modern writers, I do have to say that the strongest feeling I got while reading Death Valley is that it's Broder's version of Beautiful World, Where Are You, a novel by Sally Rooney. Both are about young women going on journeys, finding out the meaning of life and love. But Broder does it in her typical fashion of making the reader feel like they just accidentally snorted a pound of cocaine - which I love. A crazy novel, but beautiful, and the most heart I've found in any Broder novel. You can tell this is personal, and you can tell Broder is looking for answers as her protagonist is, and while that does make for a messy read, it also feels like poking a bruise in the best way possible.

I am a huge fan of Melissa Broder's work and was so grateful to receive early access to read "Death Valley". The book follows the protagonist through a journey to the desert to get away from an ill father and husband. Our protagonist spends the book finding meaning (and new parts of herself) while getting lost in the desert. I liked that Broder explored a new topic from her other works (death, dying, navigating complex feelings without vices) while maintaining her eclectic view of the world (this book reminded me of her earlier work, Pisces for the ways in which the protagonist imagined a world that may not quite line up with reality). My only critique of the book is that the ending felt a bit abrupt - perhaps less time could have been spent/less detail focused on the protagonist's time in the desert and a little more time spent on the transition back to her "normal world".

A must read. This is my first book by Broder. In the middle of reading this work, I bee-lined to my local bookstore and purchased Milk Fed, which I will read next.

Death Valley grabbed a hold of me and engaged me from the beginning. At times poetic, a little esoteric (loved the Chekhov reference), and other times absurd - but ultimately, philosophical and solid. I immensely enjoyed this work.

A meditation on grief and unconditional love. I choked up at the descriptions of being and the love languages. The moments between the narrator and her father were tender and poignant. I laughed, I cried. How ridiculous it is to exist.

The vastness of the universe, the quiet wisdom of nature…this book is a favorite and one I will return to.

I feel like I expected something a little different based off of the blurb and the classification of Sci Fi & Fantasy. This was definitely more of a conversation about grief and loss, with a hint of survival story thrown in.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, I felt like it was an interesting modern day conversation about loss. But the second half of the book (mostly the dessert part) felt like it was lacking substance and dragged on a lot. I felt myself loosing interest and just wanting to know if she made it out or not. I wish there had been more focus on the cactus and what she sees while with the cactus.

Over all the concept was interesting but not what I expected. I wish there had been more of a fantasy aspect with the cactus like the blurb hinted at.

I loved a lot of things about this book; I found I had very mixed feelings about it. This is my first exposure to Melissa Broder as an author and she is such a fresh voice, so different from anything else on the market today, that I'd definitely check out her back catalog after reading this.

"Death Valley" is the story of a woman, whose name we never learn amid the first person narrative, at her lowest point in her life. She is struggling with suicidal thoughts, she can't finish her latest novel that she is writing after a successful career in publishing, her father is dying and her husband, who she thinks she may be falling out of love with, has an untreatable chronic illness that leaves him too weak to walk and a plague of stomach issues.

Seeking respite for a few days in the vain hope of finally finishing her manuscript, she checks herself into a Best Western in the desert. I found it charming that Best Westerns were her comfort hotels. She becomes enamored with two front desk clerks, Jethra and a guy she calls Zip, and takes Jethra's advice to explore a hiking trail she recommends.

Along the hiking trail, she encounters a mystical cactus that taps into her subconscious desires and memories. As her life unravels, she returns to the trail again and again, until the cactus is no longer there, and she becomes horribly lost. What follows is a story I didn't expect, and cannot be described as anything other than a total acid trip - which is darkly funny coming from a character who is recovering from an addiction to opioids.

I loved the first half of the book and thought it had a lot of brilliant insights and character development; such great, realistic portrayals of sobriety, mental health and bisexuality. Yes to more bi rep on the page, especially characters in m/f relationships.

I struggled with the second half of the book, the character's "long dark night of the soul" when she wanders through the desert. Much of it is spent with her talking to rocks and animals, and being kind of a passive reactor to what's happening to her, though I can completely relate to not being a survivalist and letting nature conquer you. I felt it dragged and I found myself skimming some parts. The way the character becomes un-lost I also struggled with; it seemed a bit of a deus-ex-machina trick, but it did fit with the meandering acid trip nature of the narrative.

All in all, I enjoyed it, and I love Melissa Broder's writing voice. I kind of felt like she lost her way a bit in the second half and was trying to figure out how to wrap things up, just like the protagonist in the novel struggling to finish her own book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Melissa Broder has always been vulnerable in the writing that she has shared with the world, and this may be her most vulnerable work yet. Our main character grapples with depression, grief, caregiving and existential doom all while surviving the dangers of the Death Valley desert.

Readers who have come to love Melissa Broder's wacky and humorous writing, will find that in this novel as well. With a magical cactus portal and personified rocks, this may somehow still be her most somber novel to date. She sets the tone perfectly from the first page.

Sometimes we get lost, and we have to find the strength to find our way back. This is an unforgettable and inspiring novel of survival in many forms.

I always enjoy Melissa Broder's novels, but this is my favorite so far. Death Valley is so profound, poetic, and funny—I was sad when I finished it. It was a perfect blend of reddit threads, conversations with objects in nature, surrealism, radical honesty, and transformation. I can't wait until this comes out so all my friends can read it too.

Just finished and man….Melissa Broder, you crazy for this one fam…

Ok so let me preface this by saying I’ve never read Broder’s work before, so this was my first foray into her world of writing. I have heard a lot about how unique, and sometimes graphic & gross?- her novel “The Pisces” is, so I’ve always been intrigued, & so of course, I was extremely excited to receive a copy of DEATH VALLEY as it was one of my most anticipated reads of the year based on the cover and description alone. (Seriously that cover is so good)

And this novel was definitely an experience. I’ve read some reviews of this novel that say they feel this is her most personal novel yet…now not having read her other work, I can’t really confirm or deny that, but I did feel this novel was extremely personal in its exploration of love, grief and death.

I haven’t read a ton of books dealing with grief or chronic illness, but the portrayal of chronic illness felt extremely accurate in my limited experience in dealing with it. We don’t often talk about the emotional toll it takes on a person who is supporting someone in poor health or who is suffering from chronic illness- but the toll is real and it’s complicated. It is a struggle supporting our loved ones even when they are in perfect health, and so even just the idea of trying to support both a chronically ill spouse and an elderly father who is recovering from a serious car accident and is in the ICU, is extremely overwhelming, especially when you yourself are already not the most mentally strong person to begin with. It’s a lot; a lot to deal with, physically, mentally and emotionally.

I think a lot of this novel was about a woman running. Running from her own fear of death and mortality, running from her obligations, running from herself. The main character is a writer who goes to the desert under the guise of getting away to finish a novel (which felt really meta in ways) but it’s clear that this is not her only motivation in needing time alone. Although this woman made some extremely stupid choices (BRING WATER TO THE DESERT AND TELL PPL WHERE YOU ARE GOING?!) and at times was extremely unlikable, I didn’t really find her to be one of these “unhinged women,” that most of us go so crazy for lately- she felt very human the whole time, even though the reader is often left wondering what is real and what is the just… the chaos of her mind as she finds herself in a life and death situation in which she tries to survive being lost in the desert.

What worked for me:
A lot of this novel- parts of it brought tears to my eyes. Especially her feelings about her father and their relationship, and her musings on death and fear. I haven’t read many novels that are so honest about how it feels to be a caretaker for someone you love- sometimes it’s more of a duty than anything and it can be hard to love someone who is at times a burden-the main character doesn’t sugarcoat this.

The dark and dry humor that Broder seems to be known for.

This novel is very transporting, so much so that I didn’t even realize we never learn the narrator’s name until about a half hour after I finished it.

What didn’t work for me as much:
The fact that the main character was dealing with both her husband and her father being injured in different ways…I almost felt like her husband’s illness wasn’t even needed, as her father’s accident & the subsequent ups and downs of recovery almost overshadowed everything else. At times I felt it would have made more sense to just focus on her father and completely do away with the storyline of her husband’s illness altogether. Yet at the same time, the narrator’s thoughts on the way she reacts to her husband’s pain as opposed to her father’s pain and her different feelings about her duties to both of them- were very thoughtful and astute…so in that regard, I understand this choice to juxtapose her perception of their pain in this way.

Overall, I was delighted to read this novel because it was so unique and different. It was more spiritual than I was expecting and deeper than I was expecting as well. I will definitely be reading more of Broder’s work- this is one I could likely go on and on about, but it’s late and I already fear my thoughts aren’t going to be as astute as I would like. I gave it 4/5 stars and really appreciate the opportunity to read this one. I know it is a novel I will be thinking about for a long time, & one that will continue to rise to the surface for me. As someone who’s had a somewhat complicated relationship with her father, the tenderness the narrator felt towards hers felt especially sacred. Thank you so much to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster & the author for this opportunity to read this novel.

really relatable main character made this easy to read, even with the more prickly aspects of her personality and outlook. enjoyed the absurdity and it didn't go too far. I will say the last third of the book felt like it was dragging a bit despite the brevity, but I guess that makes sense given what's happening story-wise

DEATH VALLEY |

Thank you @scribnerbooks and @netgalley. This is out Oct 24th!

If you've read MILK FED and THE PISCES then you already know you're in for a trip with DEATH VALLEY.

At the start of the book, our MC is checking into a Best Western. We learn that her father, who has been in the ICU after a serious car accident, has died a few times, been resuscitated and that her husband who is sick has been getting worse. On a whim, she goes hiking and sees an enormously large cactus that she finds has a slit of an opening in it…

Our MC is a wreck. She's been dealing with emotional stress, more than she can bear. She's been "anticipatorily grieving" the death of her dad, mourning him while he's still alive and that is a heavy emotional toll. In a way, our MC is seeking to be cared for, to lie back in a hospital bed, be soothed, cared for, emptied, centered, allowed to unravel and nurtured back to life. Whether that's in a hospital bed or out in the middle of nowhere desert though -

She definitely does just that though.

This book felt heavier and darker than the other 2 I mentioned above. Those felt more whimsical and the stakes weren't so high. This felt like a deep, dark, excellent-turned-bad-but-needed acid trip. I thoroughly enjoyed.

A stunning meditation of grief, loss, and how the journey of self-discovery is ever-changing. I loved the metaphorical nature of the desert, I loved the trippy descriptions. I have read Melissa Broder's other works and at first I was hesitant about this one because it is a diversion from Milk Fed and The Pisces. But her writing style truly shines and I thought this was a quite ambitious journey. Read it!

I gobbled this up in a day; Melissa Broder sure knows how to make very entertaining fiction! The novel tackles grief and illness and being a working artist in today's world without ever dipping into the saccharine. It's heartfelt and engaging, and I look forward to reading whatever Broder does next.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley!