It will remind you of all the great times you spent with your brothers sharing a bedroom, watching movies together, building snow sculptures in winter that are harshly judged by a semi-psychotic father figure, and living in complete isolation from the rest of society unaware that something called “women” exist, and getting murdered if you venture out of bounds to find out. For those of you with brothers, you’ll enjoy Josh Malerman’s The Inspection. It will make you appreciate living in isolation with your sister who (probably) didn’t poison the rest of your family years ago. Have your siblings with you, too? Take a break from recreating old family photos for your mom to post on Facebook and curl up with Shirley Jackson’s classic We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Or if you and your parents get along really well, and it’s the neighbors that are causing problems, Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests can provide a respite from the car parades that Karen next door insists on organizing daily. So for those of you who moved back with the parents for the duration, enjoy Otessa Moshfegh’s Eileen, whose title character seeks a way out from life with her homebound alcoholic father by getting obsessed with a new co-worker at the boys’ prison where she works. Not everyone has a partner to spend their stay-at-home orders with. But they probably shouldn’t have chosen a commune housed in a former Victorian mental asylum on land once used for a witch-burning.īooks for Singles Quarantining with Their Families Planning on some couples therapy in the near future? In SJI Holliday’s The Lingering, Jack and Ali Gardiner thought leaving London for a commune in the English countryside would help solve their marital problems. You’ll forget all about the dirty underwear on the floor when you start checking out your own window to see if the shouting of the never-seen children outside really are getting closer. Forget your partner’s irritating habits by losing yourself in the story of Julie and James, who suffer from nervous breakdowns as a result of the creepy child-like drawings that appear on the walls and the secret passages that keep manifesting themselves inside their newly bought house. Ready to set your partner’s belongings on fire if they won’t stop videobombing your Zoom calls in their underwear? Read Jac Jemc’s The Grip of It instead.
Have a different quarantine situation? Want to lift your spirits by reading about someone whose situation is worse than yours? There’s a book here for you.īooks for About-to-be-Divorced Quarantining Couples If you’re stuck with your college roommates, They Did Bad Things might be for you.
As I prep to launch a book while most of the nationwide shutdowns and restrictions remain in place, I started thinking about the best crime/thriller/horror books to read in quarantine. When the publication date for They Did Bad Things was set last year (which is about a decade in pandemic-time), I didn’t think my book about old college frenemies trapped in an isolated house trying to not to die (or kill each other), would be as fitting for the times as it is. Since then, I’ve been hunkered down with Mom and three dogs, making only essential trips to the grocery store and the vet. That night, I cancelled a vacation planned for the next week and watched the Project Runway finale with my mom. On the way home, I stopped for gas and groceries. Over two months ago, I commuted to work for the last time.