I love Melissa Broder's style. Normally, stream of consciousness prose makes my skin crawl, but Broder's writing works. The characters are well drawn and flawed. They seem like real people, in the modern world, doing normal things that seem weird, like asking questions on Reddit.

I appreciated the exploration of grief alongside getting lost in the desert. I also think it's time for me to add another cactus to my houseplant collection.

Magical, dreamy and emotional. Captivated from the first page just like I was with her other novels!

As always, I loved the prose and the main character (Melissa Broder really writes the best, flawed, wonderfully self-involved characters). I did not love the endless conversations the main character had with inanimate objects and/or animals.

I was very ready to dislike DEATH VALLEY, because I really did not like The Pisces (I know, I know, everyone loves it). I didn’t read Milk Fed because of how much I disliked The Pisces, and now I’m fully eating my hat from saying that maybe Melissa Broder wasn’t for me, because this was fantastic.

It’s about grief, but many different facets of it — for a childhood; for a life that hasn’t worked out the way it was “supposed” to; for a father and for a husband, neither of whom are dead. It’s also about finding yourself in the desert, where you’ve accidentally got very lost after making friends with some rocks, and meeting the child version of your father inside a cactus.

I really enjoyed both Pisces and Milk-Fed, and while this had the quotable quotes and delectable prose I expect from Broder, it didn’t quite reach the heights of those two for me - although I really, really loved the Best Western deep-dive, and would say all the surrealism is worth it for that!

Death Valley is a novel about grief and the self, set in the California desert. A woman is staying in a Best Western, escaping her father in the ICU and her chronically ill husband, but without purpose. When a receptionist suggests a nearby hiking trail, the narrator finds a strange giant cactus, unusually there and with a gash that allows you to climb inside, and transfixed by the cactus, the woman is drawn back to the place again and again.

I didn't know what to expect from this book and any summary doesn't really give away the hazy, unreal nature of it, really capturing the sense of this character out in the desert, experiencing things that don't seem real. The narrative keeps being interrupted both by memories and by calls from the narrator's family members, and this all gives a real sense of the character as she reflects on her own selfish ideas of other people's illnesses and deaths. Later in the book is a more extended sequence in the desert and this was my favourite part—I wasn't expecting it and it was both surreal and grounded in a sense of danger. Other than this, not a huge amount happens in the novel, but it is the little details that stand out, like the contents of the Grab N Go breakfast packs.

This book won't be for everyone, as it is fairly anticlimactic, but I liked the combination of a narrator who doesn't know what she should be thinking and feeling with a surreal cactus and some strange details.

The more I think about it, the less I love this book - especially that ending. I don't mind magical realism in a book and I think Melissa Broder can definitely pull it off (i.e. The Pisces) but this felt so disjointed, repetitive and not particularly insightful. All of this would have been okay if it hadvat least been entertaining but I was not really entertained.

Ok, I knew going into this I was probably going to like this since I've read and enjoyed everything Miss Broder has published. And I was not disappointed!

We follow an unnamed narrator as she deals with he dad in the ICU while also trying to finish her book. Do clear her head and figure out the ending of her book she takes a trip to the Los Angeles desert where she ends up getting lost. I don't want to say much more than that since I think it's best to go into this knowing as little as possible.

If you like reading about grief, overthinking and self obsession this is the one for you!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

I want to live inside of Melissa Broder's brain. Everything she writes continues to get better and better. I don't think there's any other contemporary writer that consistently blows my mind the way that Melissa Broder does.

Death Valley opens with the first person narrator pulling into a Best Western in the desert. It's part escape from long term ill husband and ICU ill dad and also her own pervasive anxiety riddled thoughts.
Unfortunately the main character is the only one in the book. Not one of the others get much more of a drawing so they remain 1 dimensional at all times.
The descriptions seem very like Broder actually went to a Best Western with writer's block and decided to just narrate everything she saw hoping it would stick.
There's a lot (too much) of mindfulness, and meditation going on, in the way people with anxiety think that their anxiety is spellbinding for others. There were funny moments and flashes of insight "It's always the people you don't want to be there for you who are there for you." She also has an unhealthy attachment to Reddit.
At a certain point she goes off hiking without telling anyone where and finds a giant cactus which she climbs into and conducts lengthy conversation with her loved ones. I gave up at this point.
I'm not in to misery porn, or this sort of new age fixation with love languages, and asking question after question in what's supposed to be prose or anything to do with our souls. I like the harsh realities of guilt and selfish acts without the pondering, like in Pisces.

As a big Melissa Broder fan, I wanted to love this way more than I did. The protagonist was too soppy, too introspective, and too apologetic for me. Death Valley is very much a spiritual retreat from reality, the character goes off to the desert to escape an ailing father, husband and looming deadline for a book she's due to write. She's post alcohol, post drugs so it's not a hallucination as such. But it still is.
In the desert she climbs into a cactus and talks to her loved ones telepathically. She ponders the philosophical question of death, whilst in the valley.
The prayer motif starts almost immediately as she pulls in the Best Western parking log and are immediately followed by a level of overthinking that everyone will relate to but not necessarily want to read about every six pages.
The self indulgent pov was often funny, "I am still the kind of person who makes another person's coma all about me" but there werent enough of these to navigate the grief in any sort of way I could get behind.
I just don't like reading about guilt and grief. Please return to your voice in Pisces.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder is an incredible journey through grief and love that left me spellbound. The main character's struggles with her father's illness, depression, addiction recovery, writing a book, and her husband's mysterious ailment resonated deeply with me. It might sound heavy, but the book itself is anything but. Broder's writing is both poetic and easy to follow, striking the perfect balance between depth and simplicity.

There are plenty of memorable quotes and insightful reflections in Death Valley that will stay with me. The book tackles important themes like growing up and navigating relationships, especially with our parents. The ending was unexpected following the build up, and I felt like I had gone on a transformative journey with the protagonist.

At first, I was worried that the main character's first-person perspective would be too self-indulgent, but she possesses just the right amount of self-awareness to make her likable and relatable. Having discovered Melissa Broder through this book, I can't wait to dive into her other works like Milk Fed and The Pisces. Her writing style has completely won me over!

Death Valley is Melissa Broder's third novel and it is told in first person POV. This book follows a woman as she tries to survive in the California desert. A woman stays at a Best Western whilst her father is in the ICU and her husband's illness is getting worse. The motel leads to a hike where the woman discovers a huge cactus which should not exist in California. The cactus has a gash in its side that the woman steps through like a door. This leads to her fight in the California desert. I loved reading this and I am giving it 5 stars. It had the classic feel of a Melissa Broder novel but it also felt very distinct from anything I have read by her. At the heart of Death Valley is a beautiful story of grief but not just the finality of grief but the pain of awaiting grief and the grieving before a death. The writing was very readable and I easily read this novel. It did have a lot of beautiful passages and I loved the parts about love language. I definitely recommend reading this novel especially if you have loved Melissa Broder's previous work. It was a beautiful story and I loved it so much. I will be picking up a copy when it releases because I need a physically copy of this wonderful story on my shelves. This book will stay with me for a long time.

I read an arc copy so this quote may not be in the final book but I loved it - "Then his lips curl into a faint smile beneath the budding moustache. "Because, you know", he says. "You are my firstborn."

<i>"I am still the kind of person who makes another person's coma all about me."

"I came to the desert because I wanted to be alone. Now that I'm alone, it's not what I want."</i>

I LOVE MELISSA BRODER!! I knew as soon as I got this book on NetGalley, I would have to read it IMMEDIATELY. I love how I was genuinely surprised by the end - <spoiler>basically, someone who I thought was definitely, 100% going to die, didn't.</spoiler> I loved all the unexpected twists and turns in the novel and the surreal moments. <spoiler>I was especially genuinely surprised that it turned into a desert survival story at one point!! Strong "The Devil's Highway" vibes.</spoiler> The final few sentences are beautiful.

I thought the overall themes - of dealing with death, fear of losing a parent - were really powerful. I also liked how we got no backstory whatsoever to her addiction. And I thought it was really ballsy to make the main character a writer who was struggling to finish her novel. It's good to see her taking risks/changing as a writer, i.e. there is hardly any sex in this (apart from one moment alone in the desert that really made me laugh). I guess the opposite of sex is DEATH, so the topic of this topic is a totally logical follow-up.

Like any Broder novel, it's full of hilarious one-liners that really made me chuckle. Like when she reads "I AM WHO I AM" in the Bible and thinks, <i>"God using all caps like an Internet troll. Also, god is very self-accepting it seems (mirror Post-it affirmations?)." I also really loved/found it funny how reading reddit threads was used as a narrative thread, particularly the plant communities. </i>

Overall this book was a warm balm for my soul, and I loved loved reading it. Stan for life!!!

<i>"'Pee is not a plot point,' an editor once said to me. I disagree. There is never enough pee in novels."

"We don't pray to change the world, we pray to change ourselves."

"Up to my knees in the realm of feeling. Wading wearily. But wading."</i>

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Finding a will to live and navigating grief (particularly preemptive grief) while lost in the desert. This feels like Broder’s most personal book to date.

Fever dreamish and hazy, you feel like you’re out there in the hot sun along with our protagonist. It’s a real journey, and I was never sure if I was enjoying the book but was always thinking about it when I put it down.

It’s very different to Milk Fed and The Pisces but absolutely has that Broder biting wit, surrealism, and matter of fact view of the world.

The descriptions of the Best Western and the staff who work there were some of my favourite parts of the book.

While this isn’t my favourite of hers, I applaud her for going in a different direction and I think many people are going to really connect with this book.

Death Valley by Melissa Broder is about dealing with family members being ill and feelings of anticipatory grief and love languages. I think I'd give the first half four stars for being an insightful and heartbreaking mix of funny and sad and relatable but the second half does drag a little in the way time drags for the protagonist as she is completely alone.