I have an aversion to reading books that are too similar to projects I’m working on, but this week, somehow, two different, essential elements of two different projects I’m working on entered my consciousness… and I didn’t mind it.
The first wasn’t a book at all, but rather a television show, The OA. The ultra-bizarre speculative fiction system that effortlessly walks the line between, self-aware fantasy and “Wait… did that really happen? Or is she crazy?” is exactly what I was hoping to do with my first book, which I luckily have yet to send to my very patient agent, so I might still have time to pull it apart.
The second was this book: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler, which has the self-aware unreliable narrator that I so love.
I don’t want to spoil this book for you, so what I’ll say is this: don’t read anything about it before you pick it up. Just start reading. Don’t ask too many questions; go along for the ride. If you read this book as I did: attentively but not critically, and in one fell swoop, you’ll find it surprises you over and over and over again. And not only that: it has an ending I actually like.
That’s two for two, now. I wonder if my ending-aversion is coming to an end?