Bleak novels are wonderful!

I'm the opposite. If I get depressed I need utter fluffy romance. Guaranteed happy ending to at least comfort me before I go to bed, preferably with lots of longing looks at each other.

then again I'm almost completely unable to handle bleak novels because I get far to empathetic and it will drag me down for days to know these people I really like are trapped in this awful, awful world. (Then I get pissed off because I don't like being sad and why am I reading this!?)

But! I'm glad I don't live in a world with a Machine of Death. Because I just don't ever want to know how I die before I actually do it. (Machine of Death.)

It's a collection of short stories that all HAVE a Machine of Death, which can tell you how you die (but not when or where) with a drop of your blood. Your death is sometimes ironic too, so you can't even trust the word you got. It's super creepy at times.

PrincessTeacake said:

Or I've never had to wander around a post-apocalyptic burnt world with a small child in tow, avoiding cannibals with only two bullets (The Road).

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Try Flint, Michigan, or, er, anywhere in Michigan. Don't have a child? You can borrow mine. Here's a Colt. But, oh, give me back four of the bullets.

Sometimes I shy away from books with bleak themes, for some reason. For example, I recently gave up reading Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn because it was just too grim and depressing. I've always felt an obligation to read it, partly because both of my parents grew up in Brooklyn and partly because it was my mom's favorite book, but...nope, I didn't like it at all.

A few more "downer" books that I've been hoping to read, but I've been reluctant to start: Whistle by James Jones (which takes place in a U.S. Army hospital during World War II); Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates; and Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night. Maybe someday.

I'm like Flamefire--when I'm down, I reach for fluffy.

Bleak Novels I Have Read (mostly in college and just after):

On the Beach--Nevil Shute
Tender is the Night--Fitzgerald
Les Miserables--Hugo
Hunchback of Notre Dame--Hugo
The Bell Jar--Plath

The only one I've reread is On the Beach--and only for the horror aspects. Give me a good mystery with a little humor any day.

Eh, for some reason Lily Bart resonates with me. I don't know why because well she's a rich girl who ended up on hard times and I'm nothing like that.

As a Christian whenever I felt down I was always told to read Psalms or Job and be happy I'm not like that. Ugh! Even more depressing.

callalily61 said:

I'm like Flamefire--when I'm down, I reach for fluffy.

Bleak Novels I Have Read (mostly in college and just after):

Les Miserables--Hugo

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I'm reading Les Mis right now, almost two-thirds of the way through. Despite the bleak descriptions of poverty, I think it's an incredibly uplifting book -- so far, at least. I'll make my final judgment when I finally finish reading it. Only 500 more pages to go!

I like happy endings, but I can also handle bleak. I like bleak. I prefer it to a book that was heading that way but then gets "saved" by tacking on an artificial happy ending. But, when one loves Shakespeare, one gets used to the idea that in a lot of stories almost every character one likes is going to die <G>.

I never could figure out why so many people got blindsided by the carnage and bleakness in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, when to me it seemed obvious from the first pages that it was a retelling of Hamlet. Well, that and it was chosen by Oprah for her book club. Has that woman *ever* chosen a light-hearted book with a happy ending?

What I find spectacularly depressing are slow, meandering, uneventful tales where one keeps waiting for something to happen, but in the end the point of the whole thing ends up being There Is No Point.

I enjoy a good bleak book now and then - Jude the Obscure is amazing, and like getting a sharp swift kick in the stomach. Not recommended if you are currently depressed, but hey, you might end up thinking what you thought was a bad day, wasn't so bad.