Maybe start with some novellas to get a feel of what you enjoy. If you love it great. If you hate it at least you didn’t waste much time. I’ll recommend some shorter books for you.

Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. There are four books total and each one is roughly 200 pages or less. It’s about a cyborg that acts as security for humans and ends up hacking itself to have free will.

Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo. A cleric goes around the country recording history from oral stories.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. An area known as Area X is said to be a pristine habitat, but there are mysterious happenings effecting the people who venture in the area.

Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne Valente.

Maybe even try audiobooks. Some books I feel are better if they’re listened to. Good luck finding something you like.

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. I haven’t read it myself but I’ve heard people mention it.

I feel like the baby was a kind of replacement for Ari. I think it was implied Antoine knew and it was kind of like why add more stress on top of the situation. Vianne even says how she and Sophie didn’t mention that time of their lives again because it was too painful. I also felt Vianne was kind of a jerk to her son. She really seemed to think lowly of him. It was a book which had a lot of sad moments and events. Strangely I didn’t really like the relationship with Isabelle and Gaetan. It felt forced and during the moment they really bonded, it got skipped in favor of just having them stumble upon Viannes home

I’ll give my take on it. The overarching answer is trauma. Starting with Vianne, for me the most interesting aspect was her relationship with Beck. Of course he was the enemy but he was actively helping her. Not excusing his behavior at all but things are generally not so black and white and her attraction to him was interesting to see. But make no mistake she had no qualms about killing him.

She pretended the baby was Antoine’s from trauma. It was one more aspect of a mountain of suffering. What should she have done? Antoine knew the baby wasn’t his but didn’t care. They just wanted to go back to their lives. One thing that did bother me was that Antoine escaped prison and made it all the way home without being spotted but, oh well.

I fully expected Isabelle to die honestly. Just like Antoine’s return, Gaetans appearance right before she died didn’t sit well for me. The starvation, physical and mental exhaustion from the camp was bound to take its toll. I’d rather her have just died in the hospital.

In a situation like that, no one is really making rational decisions. They’re doing what they can to survive and protect their loved ones, whether by ensuring their child survives or by ensuring allied soldiers can escape and help them in the end. Just my opinion.

The Picture of Dorian Gray. Took me a week to read the last 20 pages. I wanted it to last forever.