A review by breanneporter
Death Valley by Melissa Broder

emotional funny reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really like Melissa Broder’s voice as an author, and there was some really beautiful writing and commentary on grief in this, but it just didn’t hit for me. It follows a 41 year old author as she embarks on a trip to Death Valley in order to get inspiration for her in-process novel about a woman not unlike herself. During the journey she goes on hikes in the desert, finds and enters a magical cactus, gets lost, anthropomorphizes many many inanimate objects and animals, and confronts her grief and feelings around her father’s illness and her husband’s chronic pain.  I read on audio and while I  liked the protagonist, I found it hard to stay totally focused on the strange, meandering, half-real/half-imagined journey (without drifting back into my own thoughts). I think I may have enjoyed this more if I had read it with my eyes, and especially if I had recently processed/was processing a similar grief. Overall kind of a meh for me, though I wished I liked it more. 
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