How Weird Can I Find These Books?
A reading blog chronicling my time doing the Week of Weird Readathon: Round 4
Prelude
To be honest, I don’t know how you would go about looking for “weird” books.
Sure, I have read some books that maybe were a bit odd. One of my earlier reads this year, Interesting Facts About Space by Emily R. Austin, I described as “uniquely weird, but in a good way.”1
But what does it even mean for a book to be a “weird” book?
When I stumbled across this readathon hosted by FiberArtsyReads and JasonWeirdReads, it did catch m
y interest. I never really thought about “weird” books being a whole big thing for people to get invested in to the point where there would be actual readathons and groups associated with the genre.
Week of Weird: Round 4 TBR
For the readathon, I have a single week to complete three prompts relating to books that would be defined as “weird”. I’m going to go over the books I’m planning to read in detail in the next couple of paragraphs, but these are the three prompts that I have to complete in one week.
Cosmic Horror
Graphic Novel
LGBTQ+ Author
Cosmic Horror
This was probably the hardest prompt for me to figure out what to read for two reasons. I think we all know by this point that horror is not my go-to, though I am willing to explore the genre. Secondly, I simply didn’t know what cosmic horror is. It took a bit of searching online and I eventually landed on a short story available on Kindle Unlimited that would meet the prompt.
You are What Eats You by Chris Burton is an epistolary short story about a so-called “gym rat” discovering a new performance-enhancing substance that leads to some dire consequences. I don’t know much about the book beyond the description and there wasn’t reviews that I could find of the book. While I don’t know if this would be a five-star read, I am actually interested in reading the story since the plot seems interesting and is at least something that could make me laugh (the description said it was funny, but I don’t know if that’s true or not).
Let’s just hope this ends up not being too scary…
Graphic Novel
For this prompt, I didn’t really had as hard of a time picking out a book to read. I found this reimagined Carmilla by Amy Chu thanks to some online scrolling, and I definitely think it would meet the “weird” graphic novel prompt.2
LGBTQ+ Author
While not as hard to find a book compared to the Cosmic Horror prompt, it took me a while to come up with a “weird” book that I could easily read in a week and met the LGBTQ+ Author prompt.
Ultimately, for this prompt, I’m going to be reading Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe. A collection of sci-fi/horror short stories, this book caught my eye for the unique overall plot concept as well as the fact that I think the book’s aesthetic looks cool.
Reading Entries
Monday
You are What Eats You by Chris Burton
It only took me 48 minutes to read this book and only read it in two sittings, and this book definitely lived up to the hype of this readathon’s motto: “What on Earth did I just read??”
Oddly, this novella reminded me of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, but if Yellowface had more body horror and gore. Dealing an unlikeable and unreliable narrator, Burton highlights through grotesque physical transformation and slow descents into madness a horror story about loneliness, which works well with the epistolary format Burton used for this book.
Overall, if you’re looking for a spooky season novella or you want a novella with similar message to R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface, I would recommend checking out this book.
Carmilla: The First Vampire by Amy Chu
Before I went to bed, I was able to read 38 pages of this book.
I thought it was good, but there’s no much on the retelling front if you’re looking for a Carmilla retelling. Especially since the Carmilla aspect of this reimagination feels a bit more like a prop for a whole new story than incorporating aspects of the novella in this reimagining.
Maybe it’s just me, or I’m just being too quick to judge, but hopefully everything will make more sense when I finish the rest of the book.
Tuesday
Carmilla: The First Vampire by Amy Chu
Perhaps I may have been a bit too quick to judge with this book.
Did I thought it was one of the greatest things I ever read? No. Did I thought it was better that Le Fanu’s Carmilla? Also, no. But did I had a bad time with this book? No.
You do see more of the parallels with this reimagining and the original Carmilla as I got further in the book, and it does stay relatively close to the source material. I also liked the addition of Chinese mythology infused into the plot, which I think added an additional layer to this story.
But honestly, I feel like this book could have been fine as its own story rather than having it be a retelling/reimagining.
Rest of the Week
I know earlier in the post that Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe was going to be the last book I read as part of Week of Weird: Round 4, but I borrowed this as an audiobook from my library’s digital collection and I could just tell after the first 30 minutes this was not format to be reading this book in. It was hard to keep track of characters and understand what was going on in each of the stories, so I’m going to have to find a physical copy of this read at some point and see if it’s less confusing.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I had surprisingly good time with this week-long readathon. It definitely got me outside of my comfort zone with what I read regularly and did provide some idea of what my reading tastes might look like outside of my go-to genres. I didn’t know whether or not this readathon would be my cup of tea or even if the genre of “weird” literature is even my thing, but I could see myself reading more of this genre.
If you participated in the Week of Weird: Round 4, please let me know in the comments and what you ended up reading.
Though, if you haven’t had a chance to read this book, I definitely would recommend it.
I was also told that this book would also meet the LGBTQ+ author prompt and that we are allowed to double up on prompts (which I will be doing). However, for the sake of organizing the article, I put this book solely under the graphic novel section.