Death Valley is a portrait of love while being in a unsettling state of grief, an existential crisis and dealing with a loved one that needs your full attention.
I found myself relating to this woman in so many moments, especially in her relationship with her father, and on how she's used to express her love and how she expected eveyone else to express their love.
It felt like a fever dream, like one of those movies where everything happens out of nowhere, and you have to pay attention to every single detail or you'll definetely get lost.
I enjoyed very much, and i think with that ending gives people more hope about any situation that they could be in, it's like saying: in reality it's not as bad as you think it is in your head.
Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for the advanced copy in exchanged of an honest review.

This book is the best blend of beautiful and complete kookiness. I loved it.

Our protagonist is taking a break from sitting in the hospital in the ICU helping with her ailing father to go to the desert to get inspiration for a new novel. While staying at the local Best Western (where else are you going to stay when heading west?) she decides to go on a hiking trail where she finds a mysterious cactus. Only when she goes back to find said cactus she gets a wee bit turned around. 😅

Okay. Seriously keep some beverages next to you while reading because you’re going to get THIRSTY.

I cannot get over this book. For folks that have gone through a major hospital stay with a parent, all the metaphors resonated with me soooo hard. Like, I did not expect to cry TWICE and feel such connection with a woman lost in a desert, trying to climb inside a trippy cactus but here we are.

Broder so perfectly captures the claustrophobic and intense feelings of pre-grief. It has her trademark ridiculousness but she digs deep into emotions in this book, which makes for the perfect combination.

And can we talk about the cover? It’s PERFECTION.

This is kind of a difficult book for me to review. It’s no plot just vibes, but I was happy just to go along the ride. I didn’t realize going in that it was magical realism, but I really enjoyed that aspect.

I think the humor was my favorite part of the book. The use of parentheses and clarification was simple but funny.

Melissa Broder is incredibly talented at prose and the book is enjoyable just for that. It took me a while to finally read one of her books but I’m glad I finally have and I look forward to reading Milk Fed!

I am absolutely feral for this book. I love the way Melissa Broder's mind works so fucking much. She just really gets me. Based on how much I've loved Milk Fed and now this book, I feel like I need to read the rest of her body of work immediately.

This is a book about the weirdness of grief—grieving death, grieving seeing your loved ones in pain—and the fear of death and the unknown, and it's appropriately bizarre. It feels like a fever dream or an acid trip in the desert. An unnamed writer narrator (whose life bears more than a few similarities to Melissa's) with a chronically ill husband takes a trip to the Mojave Desert while her dying father is in the hospital. There, she finds a magical cactus that propels her into a psychedelic odyssey.

I loved the poetic, absurd descriptions of the desert nature setting. I've also been a slut for women writing thinly veiled fictional versions of themselves ever since reading Carmen Maria Machado's short story that did the same. According to an interview, Melissa sees this as a satire of autofiction, and I love to see her playing with the genre.

I read this book mostly in the dark late at night before bed, and I think it really benefited from being read in the liminal half-awake dream state because of its trippiness. Also, parts of it captured this strange, anodyne feeling of coziness—the kind of feeling you get in a sterile hospital room or in a Best Western hotel room—that I've always been drawn to and have never quite heard anyone else describe in art (I've even tried to capture it in my own writing).

This is one of my favorite books I've read all year, up there with Our Wives Under the Sea, another beautiful weird book about grief.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder

Content warning:

- Death
- Mental illness
- Suicidal ideation

Death Valley starts with our narrator arriving at a Best Western in the middle of the desert. She’s navigating the complicated space of anticipatory grief after spending months visiting her father in the hospital. One of the clerks at the hotel mentions a hike in the desert, and the narrator decides to go out on an adventure. While hiking, she experiences some visions of her father and husband, and comes to some realizations about love, grief, connecting with others and dying.

I was surprised to enjoy this book as much as I did, as I normally don’t like magical realism. But the writing style, nuanced ideas, and imagery in Death Valley earned it four stars from me.

Our nameless narrator arrives in a desert town and waxes on about her love for Best Westerns. We learn that her father was in a car accident and has been in the hospital for months, trying to recover. We also learn that the narrator’s husband suffers from an undiagnosed illness that makes it to where he spends long periods of time in bed.

There are two clerks at the Best Western—Jethra and Zip. When the narrator announces she’s going for a hike, Jethra recommends a hike in the desert that’s not far from the hotel. Our narrator, despite not really being an outdoorsy type, decides to go for an adventure and follow the hike.

While hiking, she comes across a giant cactus. She goes inside the cactus through a hole in the side, and while inside, she sees visions of her father as a little kid.

The next day, she gets news that her father has woken up from his most recent coma. She goes back to the desert and when inside the cactus, she sees visions of her father as a teenager, and visions of her husband as a little kid.

She decides to check out of the hotel and head home, but stops at the desert trail one last time. This time, the cactus is not there, and she wanders out farther out in the desert. She ends up getting lost, spraining her ankle, and falling down the side of a hill.

“It hits me then. Whatever I am doing, this is actually dangerous. Something bad could happen.”

Because she’s never gone past the cactus during her other hikes, she’s not sure where she is, and the darker it gets, the more difficult it is for her to figure out where she is.

“I don’t know if there is such a thing as ‘officially lost,’ or what makes a person maybe lost vs. sort of lost vs. lost. There were times in my life when I felt totally lost and then realized I was only sort of lost, or not lost at all. There were other times when I felt not-lost and later realized I was completely lost. Most of these were emotional.”

Her phone cracks and goes dead, and though she’s able to start a fire at night, she runs out of water quickly. As she crawls around in the desert, trying to figure out how to get back to her car, she reflects on her father’s illness, her husband’s illness, and the reality of death.

“The flower falls to the ground. I continue on my arid crawl. And it dawns on me then that I must really want to live. And it surprises me.”

The narrator finds a cactus to eat, which makes her stomach hurt, but gives her enough moisture to continue crawling on. While crawling, and thinking, she realizes that she’s not totally empathetic, or compassionate, to her husband as he struggles with his disability.

She sees a bird in the desert, rides on it, and takes it to mean that her father has died. Then, she realizes she knows where she is. She finds the giant cactus again and spends some time sitting inside, until she hears Jethra and Zip out looking for her.

Upon hearing their voices so close, she crawls out of the cactus and throws a rock at Zip, who’s trying to convince Jethra to leave, even though they saw the narrator’s car in the parking lot. The rock alerts them to the narrator’s presence, and she’s taken to the hospital.

Her mother comes, and she learns that her father isn’t actually dead, he’s fine. The book ends with her husband joining her in the hospital, the two of them curled in the hospital bed together.

I always like to start with what I like first. One of the things I liked most about this book was the imagery. While exploring the desert and experiencing some of these magical realism elements, the narrator describes different kinds of cacti, animals like lizards and rabbits, and various types of rocks and shrubs you might see on a hike like this. I thought the descriptions were vivid and gave the book a lot of life.

Grief, illness, death, and empathy were all themes in this book. We see the narrator struggle with being empathetic when it comes to her husband with the undiagnosed illness. We also see the narrator struggle to connect with her father while he’s in the hospital, wishing he would connect with her more than he is. By the end of the book, she’s come to the realization that being on his deathbed doesn’t change who he is and what he wants.

The primary bulk of the book is the narrator’s thinking, which is fine, because she has a lot of interesting thoughts.

When it comes to criticisms, I don’t really have a whole lot for this book. I feel like it set out to do something, and it accomplished it. All in all, I thought Death Valley was a good read. If you like magical realism and you’re ready for a book about grief and loss, it might be the right choice for you.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

This is the third novel I have read by this author. I previously read The Pisces and Milk Fed. This novel has many of the elements I have enjoyed from the author in the past. The author is very skilled at writing quirky characters and humorous passages. However this book was very dry like the desert setting of the novel.

The main character is a writer who goes to the desert to complete a novel. She is leaving behind a father who is in ICU after a horrific accident and a chronically sick husband. The book has a lot of ramblings about life while the main character talks to animals, rocks and other desert inhabitants. I felt bogged down when reading those passages and wishing for the book to come to a close.

Even though I did not enjoy this book as much as I did her previous books, I will definitely read another book by Melissa Broder.

I requested and received an advanced copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

I knew what I was getting into with "Death Valley." Melissa Broder is known for her unique writing voice, so I was prepared for whatever madness was headed my way. And while there are a few things I didn’t like about the book – namely, the occasional bathroom humor and an abuse of parentheticals – I appreciated it for its thought-provoking insight.

Broder takes death and grief, depression, and the need for parental approval and rolls it all into a fever-dream tale of an unnamed woman fleeing to the California desert to escape her life. Her father is in the ICU and her husband is ill, and she’s also trying to finish a novel – a lot is on her plate. So when she encounters a gigantic cactus on a desert trail with an opening slashed into its side, she enters it. And thus begins a journey that is at once emotional and funny, existential and life-threatening, and totally absurd.

Broder says a lot in "Death Valley," and though she’s a very intellectual writer, she frames her complexity in accessible language and avoids a highbrow style. She doesn’t go on and on, either. She makes her point and moves to the next.

And her observations are so astute. She points out how it’s impossible to outrun a feeling because the feeling is inside you, and since you take yourself with you when you run, the feeling goes with you. That love isn’t always an emotion, sometimes it’s a verb. And what’s so frightening about existing is that life never stops for you but it does end, and then it continues to go on without you.

There’s so much good stuff here. So much to think about. I’ll be mulling it over for days.


My sincerest appreciation to Melissa Broder, Scribner, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.

A woman vs. the void, meets western masterpiece!

This book has everything: grab-and-go breakfast bags, grab-and-go breakfast bag forms, hotel desk attendants that are just your type, cactus discourse, two mini bottles of water

This book gets an A+ in every subject: stunning cover, intriguing storyline, unique characters, emotion, humor

Broder has such a talent for getting thoughts onto paper in a realistic way. There were a lot of moments where I could relate to the MC and her thought process. I laughed, I grieved, I empathized. This is a def recommend!

Thank you NetGalley & Scribner for the digital ARC. A special thanks to Melissa Broder! All opinions are my own.

I’d been looking forward to reading Death Valley for awhile. But wow, no summary could prepare me for this awesome ride. I flew right through this book, unable to put it down- and unable to stop thinking about it when I did. It’s moving, funny, surrealist, and yet deeply human. And what an adventure it takes is on! I will definitely be revisiting this one in the future. Shh-boom, indeed.

Thank you Melissa Broder, Scribner, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

This was an overall very enjoyable read! My main critique lies with it feeling like it was far too long and dragged out, which resulted in me feeling like I was rereading the same chapter for about 40% of the book. I feel like this could have been edited down to the most phenomenal, weird, psychologically riveting novella. The themes of care work, addiction, grief and loneliness were so intriguing and yet with how much (extra) space there was in this book, none of these themes really felt fleshed out to their full potential. Perhaps I just prefer more succinct stories, but if there was less time spent literally being dragged through a desert I feel we could have really meditated on what promising material was already there. I will say, the characters were maybe my favorite part of this story as the dialogue was incredibly humorous and I would have never thought proper characterization could be given to rocks and succulents and roses, but it somehow worked. I also want to take some time to say how much I enjoyed the more weird and bizzare parts of this book that made you really question the main character's reality (even if I personally think the last major magical realism moment was a bit of a cop out and jumped the shark too much for my liking). Every scene that had to do with the giant cactus? Marvelous, hilarious and perplexing. I just wish that the story as a whole worked better for me pacing wise.

As a big fan of Milk Fed, it's possible I went into this book with more expectations than intended. I like Melissa Broder's wit and sarcasm, but this book didn't deliver for me. It just felt like one long writing exercise, or a thought experiment that somehow got turned into a novel. I wasn't given enough motivation to care about any of the characters, and the magical realism got overshadowed by obnoxious absurdism that eventually just turned into nonsense. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did, especially as a fan of her previous work. I won't be posting my review to social or Goodreads, but I do appreciate the opportunity from NetGalley and the publisher to read this ARC.

Broder is back with a wildly original tale about a woman dealing with grief, hallucinations and mental health. I’ve enjoyed most of her previous work but this novel was really far out there and I had a hard time connecting with the character, though some of her quirks and character traits were pretty funny. Big points for originality and exploring/writing deeply flawed characters so well

Happy pub day to Death Valley! Thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for the ARC.

Death Valley is such a weird little book, and I liked it quite a bit. It’s got a really great balance of absurdity and reflection, and the main character’s inner monologue is so freaking funny at times that you forget this story focuses a lot on loving someone who is dying until she says something so profound it slams into you. It’s full of evocative imagery and strange asides and meditations on grief and cacti and an incredibly neurotic protagonist, and, above all, the language is just exciting and fresh and fun to read.

I don’t want to give too much away because you really need to experience this yourself, but I highly recommend it. I’m sure you will fly through it the same way I did!

4.5/5

This book felt very different from Broder's previous novels, even though her signature absurdist style is still here. The theme of death, dying and illness as approached directly and uniquely. I'll be thinking about it for awhile.

Death Valley was one of my most anticipated reads this year, I am a huge fan of Melissa Broder.

This novel is about a woman who is dealing with her father who is currently in the ICU, as well as being married to a man who has health issues as well. She decided to take a break from all these emotions running through her and go to the desert. And in typical Broder fashion, the MC finds a very interesting cactus.

I enjoyed this novel, I do think her other novels were a bit more funny but this novel does deal heavy on the grief so it is understandable but there's still a bit of dark humor!

Thank you Scribner and Netgally for the eARC in exchange for this review!

What can Melissa Broder not do?! Reading her books are always like a fever dream to me and I'm always expecting a wild ride. Desert survival and best western, I'm so there. It was beautifully written which is no surprise and completely unique, and genuine to her stories. What a way to explore what it means to love someone who is dying.

A lot of weird for a book, but in a GOOD way. It's a journey as the plot and almost feels like magical realism, where you're differing between reality and not. It's grief in a book, but such beautiful storytelling for it. If you've loved her previous books, you'll love this one just as much. Expect the unexpected which is why I always come back for her writing. Kept this vague so you can go in with a completely open mind and no background!

I flew through this one in a dreamlike haze in the course of two days. What a weird and wacky and also extremely vulnerable Freudian fever dream…! This had a strong start, but lost me along the way as it slipped into a collection of visions and hallucinations. I felt like I was wading through a river of symbolism, trying to fish out some meaning from it all. While I started off invested, I felt more detached by the end after a series of heavy dream sequences.

There are some great moments in this, particularly between the main character and her father. I loved all the little moments of humanity, realizing you want to live and keep fighting even when it sucks. But the conversations with animals and inanimate objects felt endless and redundant. Still, I appreciated that this felt experimental and different.

I’ll admit I’ve been lukewarm on Melissa Broder in the past, but because this was so different and pushed the boundaries, I am intrigued to read more of her work. This one brought me back. Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC!

3.75⭐️

I’m a fan of The Pisces, Milk Fed, and even So Sad Today, so this one was a must read for me.

Death Valley tells the story of a woman who flees to a hotel in California to grapple with the illness of both her father and husband, and stumbles across a mysterious cactus on a hiking trail. After entering the giant cactus, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and empathy.

Broder’s writing perfectly captures grief and loneliness, while also sprinkling in a bit of humor. The emotions explored by the main character are palpable, and will stick with you once you have finished reading.

The pace was a little slow in the beginning, but once I got about halfway through, I could not get enough. Overall, I very much enjoyed Death Valley, and would recommend to a friend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for an early ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the early release copy.

"Death Valley" by Melissa Broder is a compelling read that dives deep into the complexities of human emotions and relationships. Broder's writing is both engaging and relatable, drawing you into a world of profound introspection in a harsh, stark setting. Her characters are authentic and flawed, making their journeys all the more compelling. If you're looking for a thought-provoking novel that explores life's big questions with honesty and depth, "Death Valley" is definitely worth a read. Melissa Broder's storytelling will leave you reflecting on your own experiences and the intricacies of the human condition long after you've finished the book.

Death Valley is less accomplished than Melissa Broder’s previous novels, but there’s still a lot to like here. It’s just as funny/philosophical/vulgar/earnest/depraved as Milk Fed and The Pisces, but ultimately doesn’t have much narrative thrust. The ending feels (intentionally) arbitrary, and I don’t think it will stick with me for very long (whereas practically every scene in The Pisces is burned into my memory in the best possible way). High bar, maybe! Regardless, I’ll continue to read anything Broder writes as fast as I can get my hands on it. Literary fiction that doesn’t take itself too seriously can be hard to come by these days.