MAY READING LIST
Molly is Blake Butler’s raw and heartbreaking memoir about his marriage to the poet Molly Brodak and the aftermath of her suicide. It's not a traditional love story — it’s messy, complicated, brutally honest. Butler opens up about the beautiful and painful parts of their life together, weaving through memories of connection, betrayal, mental illness, and grief. After Molly’s death, he discovers hidden parts of her life that force him to question what he really knew about the person he loved most.
This isn’t a book that tries to clean anything up or make grief look noble. It’s full of confusion, anger, tenderness, and searching — a portrait of love as something both luminous and impossibly heavy. Molly feels like opening someone’s private diary, full of sorrow but also immense compassion. It’s about living with unanswered questions and trying to find some kind of peace anyway.
MAY READING LIST RECOMMENDATIONS: Molly — Blake Butler
Cousins — Aurora Venturini
The Days of Abandonment — Elena Ferrante
The Wall — Marlen Haushofer
My Husband — Maud Ventura
Cousins by Aurora Venturini
GENRE: CONTEMPORARY, LITERARY FICTION, SPANISH LITERATURE, WOMEN Cousins, widely regarded as Venturini’s masterpiece, is the story of four women from an impoverished, dysfunctional family in La Plata, Argentina, who are forced to suffer through a series of ordeals, including illegal abortions, miscarriages, sexual abuse, disfigurement, and murder, narrated by a daughter whose success as a painter offers her a chance to achieve economic independence and help her family as best as she can.
Neighborhood mythologies, family, female sexuality, vengeance, and social mobility through art are explored and scrutinized in the unmistakable voice of Yuna—who stares wildly at the world in which she is compelled to live—a voice unique in contemporary literature whose unconventional style can be candid, brutal, sharp, and utterly breathtaking.
THE DAYS OF ABANDONMENT BY ELENA FERRANTE
GENRE: LITERARY FICTION, FEMINISM, CONTEMPORARYA national bestseller for almost an entire year, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.
THE WALL BY MARLEN HAUSHOFER
GENRE: DYSTOPIA, CLASSICS, FICTION First published to acclaim in Germany, The Wall chronicles the life of the last surviving human on earth, an ordinary middle-aged woman who awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished. Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal. This novel is at once a simple and moving tale and a disturbing meditation on humanity.
MY HUSBAND BY MAUD VENTURA
GENRE: FICTION, CONTEMPORARY, THRILLER At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she's never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated. After all, would a truly infatuated man ever let go of his wife's hand when they're sitting on the couch together?
Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, charting every mistake and punishing him accordingly to help him improve. And she tests him--setting traps to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.
Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far.
