There is nothing I like more than books that get under my skin, shake me to the core, and leave me thrilled and weak-kneed with unease. If you have a taste for rather unusual and chaotic literature, here are five glorious and slightly disquieting books for hot girl summer in no particular order;
- The Collector by John Fowles
A man consumed by a mad obsession for collecting rare butterflies, abducts his beautiful and ethereal neighbour and holds her captive in a remote house in the country, hoping to win her affection over time. This darkly surreal and suspenseful story is certain to incite a conversation about morality, materialism, consumerism and the rise and nature of the middle class. It offers a fascinating look at the fleeting beauty of nature, humanity and life in general, and also touches on the concept of the artist’s muse, which I found to be intriguing.
I’m an entomologist. I collect butterflies.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I remember they said so in the paper. Now you’ve collected me.’ She seemed to think it was funny, so I said, in a manner of speaking.
‘No, not in a manner of speaking. Literally. You’ve pinned me in this little room and you can come and gloat over me.’
2. Perfume by Patrick Süskind
A darkly sumptuous and hauntingly powerful tale about a man who has an exceptional sense of smell, capable of distinguishing very specific scents..including the scent of a beautiful young virgin. The novel also unflinchingly explores the terrifying and murderous consequences of hedonism gone too far, as well as the emotional meanings we ascribe to certain smells. Both exquisite and brutal, Perfume is one of those books that will make your heart shudder with equal parts thrill and discomfort.
The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.
3. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Monstrous yet sickeningly brilliant, Lolita chronicles a lustful infatuation of a tormented middle aged man named Humbert Humbert with the preadolescent ‘nymphet’ girl Lolita, whose maniac obsession could be mistaken for love. The writing is striking and incandescent, casting Humbert Humbert as an urealiable narrator (quite fittingly so) in this extraordinary, chilling narrative. A striking and audacious exploration of the violence of girlhood, obsession, forbidden desire and abuse, Lolita is one of the most scintillating and haunting books I’ve ever experienced.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller.
4. Things we say in the dark by Kirsty Logan
A collection of grotesquely beautiful supernatural fiction that has strong echoes of Angela Carter’s dark fairy tales. These are the kind of stories that burrow deep into your skull and crawl into your veins, and reading this felt like a fever breaking. I found the hard-hitting imagery and the gorgeous metaphors to be particularly engaging; I’ve never read anything quite like it.
Evangeline had consumed a lot of insects while I was inside her, and that meant I had consumed a lot too. Insects may have short lives individually, but together they have long memories.
In the soft pink dawn, just as Evangeline was starting to fear that she had made a terrible mistake, the insects came down from the trees and up from the soil and over from the bushes and convened on me. Piece by piece they pulled me apart, and took me home to feed to their babies
5. The girls by Emma Cline
Bursting at the seams with luscious writing and and an exhilarating plotline, The Girls is about the 14 year old Evie, feeling isolated and unwanted, is drawn to an enchanting group of girls, who will soon become an infamous cult. She is particularly entranced by the vibrant and enigmatic Suzanne, with whom she whiles away her summer at the ranch, away from her mother, cut adrift from the rhythms of normal life.
The novel provokes a terrifying examination of isolation, abuse and the danger of blind devotion. It is also a luminous exploration of bisexuality and the unbreakable bonds of friendship. In ferocious emotional detail and with tactful sensitivity, it explores girlhood, particularly what it means to be a girl growing up in the male gaze, in a largely male dominated society. This novel is impossible to look away from, as it ends with gruesome murders, which leaves Evie questioning who she is, what she is capable of and how she might have been intersected in the incident. What struck me the most, apart from the intense plotline that kept me on my toes, was the writing style; Cline writes with ferocity, and her reader hurtles unstoppably with her.
Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalogs with words like ‘sunset’ and ‘Paris.’ Then the dreams are taken away with such violent force; the hand wrenching the buttons of the jeans, nobody looking at the man shouting at his girlfriend on the bus.
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