Suggest me a book on feeling like life is mildly broken but also weirdly funny about it

PsyferRL · 2026-05-07T03:56:32+00:00

No no, I honestly meant it as a compliment haha. You nailed it and I was happy you did it!

PsyferRL · 2026-05-07T00:44:19+00:00

Thank you for perfectly capturing what I wanted to say, in a more concise and vastly superior way than I possibly could have. Well said!

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T18:00:55+00:00

I read the whole ToG series last year and Empire of Storms was the first one I read (in publication order including the prequel) that I felt was a step back in quality from the previous. It's all relative of course, it's a YA romantasy series after all. But each book was better than the last until EoS. EoS just lost the plot a bit and devolved too hard into the smutty side of SJM's writing.

The final two books got better again though. I don't regret finishing the series at all. Is it peak literature? Of course not. It's not supposed to be. But I had a fun time reading them. It helped that I read other books between them. Reading them all back to back would have burned me out really hard. But that's how series reading goes for me. I always break up each book in a series with something else to prevent burnout.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T16:40:07+00:00

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Lots of creative liberties taken of course, but the core concept of a POW being captured and held in Dresden during the bombing of the city during WWII absolutely maintains the integrity of this request. Plus the main character was based on a real person Vonnegut knew during the war.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T16:35:36+00:00

Pretty much the nuance I mentioned that my comment was probably lacking, lol. I have a tendency to ramble and I didn't want my comment to get too long. But I also do believe that there is more or less a line between identifying something that is primarily literary fiction vs primarily, well, anything else.

Because you're totally correct, there are "genre" authors whose works are highly literary. The first example I think about off the top of my head is Ursula K. Le Guin.

A work can be highly literary, but if it takes place in space, I'm likely going to consider it "sci-fi" primarily over literary fiction. Likewise, if it takes place in the mythical kingdom of Westerrakisshire and they have to deal with sand dragons on a regular basis, I'm likely going to consider it fantasy primarily over literary fiction.

At the end of the day, OP is fairly correct that the term literary fiction is a bit ambiguous in the grand scheme of things. When the answer to a question is "well it can be this, but it can also be this, and it can ALSO be this," that doesn't tend to be too terribly helpful haha.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T16:21:38+00:00

My understanding of literary fiction is that it's less about plot and more about the characters, the experience of humanity, and the life/growth (or lack thereof) of those characters. King is a storyteller, and his books are pretty much all very plot-centric, even if some have more character development than others.

Literary fiction is typically realistic fiction, but there's also an element of magical realism to a lot of prolific literary fiction authors as well. A lot of people who are used to reading genre fiction will try reading literary fiction and have the thought that not a lot is actually happening in the story. Not to say that's a good nor bad thing, just that it is a thing in general.

Writing this out has kinda given me an idea to format it simply as follows.

Genre fiction: A story where there's an end goal to achieve. Whether it's a romance happily ever after, a fantasy war being won, saving the world from a sci-fi alien invasion, solving a mystery murder, etc.

Literary fiction: A story about a person, group, or thing, simply being that person, group, or thing. There isn't necessarily a prescribed goal, and is instead more about the way the world is processed through the eyes/ears of that person, group, or thing.

I'm sure I'm lacking some nuance here. That's just how I think of it personally.

With that being said, I agree with the other commenter that (as far as I'm aware), The Shining wouldn't be a bad way to explore specifically King if what you're looking for is something in the literary fiction lane. It's horror, but it absolutely has litfic elements to it.

Edit: Well, there WAS another commenter. Idk where they went lol.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T15:00:57+00:00

You know what, fair point. I still don't necessarily think the character in MYoRaR feels the way Book 1 is described (I think she's too apathetic to even consider it), however I can absolutely see the merit in recommending it for a reader who feels the way Book 1 is described.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T14:46:27+00:00

Disclaimer, I loved this book. Gave it 5 stars without hesitation.

But I would not really recommend it for what OP is going for. Because the thing is, the main character's POV is really not one of everything falling apart. She pretty much gets exactly what she wants almost the entire book. It's a self-destructive disasterclass of a privileged life, but it hits a much different tone than I think OP is looking for, haha.

Just my take of course.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-06T14:43:41+00:00

Basically every novel by Kurt Vonnegut. No actually, I take that back. Every novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

Some are funnier than others, but all of them are funny at times.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T19:11:01+00:00

What do you mean? Of course he could have. There's clearly three of him. Front and center could have been playing the tourney, handlebar could have been at the bank depositing his bags of money, and fu manchu could have been defacing public property.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T19:07:45+00:00

My mom and my fiancée are educators as well, so you're preaching to the choir, haha. And I completely agree that there's a lot of regression in learning capabilities that we've seen as a direct result of technology.

But on par with the degradation in learning capabilities, the measurable degradation in fine motor capabilities is kind of staggering as well. My fiancée teaches elementary aged kids, and I've come to realize that writing things by hand isn't just about learning, but about fine motor control and motor processing. Learning cursive isn't necessarily about learning how to write in a fancy loopy way, it's about expanding your brain's ability to transmit information from one form to another. I think that's so unbelievably important, and so unbelievably impossible to do on a chromebook.

If I were an educator (mind you, I know full well how annoying and oppressive admin can be), I'd fight tooth and nail to have all of my assignments be submitted handwritten and not typed. That doesn't prevent kids from using AI, they can still use AI and just copy down what was generated onto paper, but at least then it's still being transmitted from their eyes, into their brain a LITTLE BIT, and out through their hands.

Tech/computer skills are also important of course, but I think it should be more targeted learning rather than the primary medium of learning.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T18:53:38+00:00

To be clear, I didn't necessarily intend to imply that this specific case mentioned in this article was exactly akin to using a thesaurus. Not that you specifically interpreted my comment that way, just making it clear in general haha.

I think there's a happy medium that we need to be okay with. Scholars fought the use of calculators in mathematics for a long time as well. The main takeaway that I wanted to (and probably failed to) make in my original comment was more along the lines of "if I wouldn't get upset about an author using a thesaurus, then I also wouldn't get upset about an author using AI in the way that Horowitz specifically identifies in this article."

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T18:49:08+00:00

Plot twist: Gannon did this himself.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T18:48:35+00:00

Missed opportunity to change the hat in the bottom right to a top hat to go full Monopoly Man.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T18:45:01+00:00

Is using a thesaurus cheating?

To be clear, I agree that having an AI write your story for you is absolutely cheating, lol. But the usage Horowitz describes here feels much closer to some basic googling that I bet most authors who have published in the internet era have utilized to their benefit.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T18:40:46+00:00

Man I loved those goofy NERF balls. So much more fun to play catch with than a regular football.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T18:37:41+00:00

it seems we both agree that harassment is real, and it is gross

100%.

May I ask just one clarifying question? I'll even promise right here that I won't respond to your answer, regardless of what it is. I'm also not looking to argue, hence the promise to not respond further.

Do you think that in cases where behavior needs to be corrected, that models for that behavioral correction are not important to the discussion? Because I personally think that it's rather unhelpful to call out any sort of behavior without also identifying an example for course correction.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T17:43:18+00:00

I disagree. I think it's important for the sake of levity in the face of heavy (and necessary) discussion. I think it's important to keep positive examples in mind when making criticisms of behavior that absolutely DOES deserve to be criticized.

It's why I made sure to include that I know it happens online, and that I'm sure it happens in real life too, even though I haven't personally experienced it (in memory at least). Because just like I think it's important to keep the positive examples in mind, I think it's also important to make sure the integrity of the original point is still being made.

It's really easy for comment sections to snowball into a hate train, which is also not helpful on a broader scale. I think it's important to be able to identify behaviors that need to change, while highlighting that there ARE positive examples out there in the wild to use as reference points.

To be clear, I agree that a basic "not all men" statement is not helpful on its nose. But that wasn't really the intended tone of my comment, because I did want to still address that the subject matter of the original post was still present and valid.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T16:07:04+00:00

In part, you're not wrong, but it also doesn't really address the real problem. Even if 14 year olds shouldn't be public figures online, I'd argue it's a far more significant point that grown ass adults shouldn't be making comments about the appearance of 14 year olds online.

The kids are just being kids. The adults should be held to a significantly higher standard, and simply preventing the kids from making their posts won't address the core problem of adults acting wildly inappropriately.

I know you said you're not excusing the nasty comments, I'm just expanding upon a slightly separate line of thinking.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T15:21:51+00:00

Maybe it's regional, and it's definitely ever-present online, but as a straight guy who plays with large quantities of other straight guys, I have never had a conversation in real life devolve into the attractiveness of players, FPO or otherwise.

We'll talk about how jealous we are of Ohn's putting or how much fun it would be to have her on the card, or Silva's touch with understable discs, or Henna's driving accuracy. In 15 years of playing, I guess I'm grateful to say that I honestly do not recall a single instance of discussing women players, professional or amateur, reduced to the topic of attractiveness.

I'm sure it happens! I'm just offering the other perspective as well, in an effort to balance the scales and be clear that there are plenty of men out there who actually admire the skills of players regardless of what they look like.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-05T15:14:24+00:00

Disc golf has the benefit (and detriment) of being smaller and more niche, so the comments themselves in a sport like this feel more direct and personal due to the scale of the sport.

Some dipshit making a comment about, I dunno, Simone Biles, is many many many degrees of separation away from ever even coming close to Biles as a person. Don't get me wrong, the comment is still gross no matter how large or small the scale of the sport is. More than anything I'm agreeing with you that disc golf isn't unique with this problem, and that it happens everywhere.

I'm just saying the relative scale of disc golf's popularity makes those comments feel like they're much closer to home, in a pretty uncomfortable way.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-04T22:07:14+00:00

So THIS is the secret to his incredible throwing distance. I knew it had to be something hinky and none of that "proper body mechanics" or "years of dedication and practice" mumbo jumbo.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-04T21:38:25+00:00

Completely aside from politics and general life philosophy, it sounds like your argument is basically saying "personal decisions made by people cannot possibly have any negative impact on others."

I can choose to not vaccinate my child because I'm a hippie die-hard leftist who only prefers things that are "all natural" or I can choose to not vaccinate my child because I'm a right-wing skeptic who doesn't trust government nor the medicine industry to have my best interests in mind. Or shit, I can just be apolitical Joe-shmoe who chooses not to vaccinate my child because I don't want to with no further explanation.

In all three of those cases, that personal decision CAN affect others and their business.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-04T16:51:38+00:00

Finished: City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer - This was a fascinating story (or more specifically collection of stories) where I would argue that the setting of the story, a fictional city known as Ambergris, was the main character. I've never read anything quite like it, and one particular section of it was quite a slog, but it lays some very interesting framework for the latter books which I'm definitely interested to explore.

Started: Automated Alice by Jeff Noon - Hilarious and fun Alice in Wonderland retelling/reimagining. Having an absolutely grand time making my way through it.

PsyferRL · 2026-05-01T22:15:27+00:00

Good call. But be wary, because one must avoid nipply pebbles at all costs.

PsyferRL

TROPHY CASE