Anyone else in a reading slump? I find I got most of my reading done while commuting to and from work each day and with the self isolation and working from home my reading came to a complete stop.
In order to ease myself back into binging books and getting sucked into fantastical worlds/stories I thought I would read the shortest 11 books currently on my owned and need to read TBR.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya by Nagaru Tanigawa
Page Count – 202
Meet Haruhi—a cute, determined girl, starting high school in a city where nothing exciting happens and absolutely no one understands her.
Meet Kyon—the sarcastic guy who sits behind Haruhi in homeroom and the only boy Haruhi has ever opened up to. His fate is now tied to hers.
Meet the S.O.S. Brigade—an after-school club organized by Haruhi with a mission to seek out the extraordinary. Oh, and their second mission? Keeping Haruhi happy—because even though she doesn’t know it, Haruhi has the power to destroy the universe. Seriously.
A House is a Body by Shruti Swamy 
Page Count – 208
In two-time O. Henry-prize winner Swamy’s debut collection of stories, dreams collide with reality, modernity collides with antiquity, myth with true identity, and women grapple with desire, with ego, with motherhood and mortality.
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
Page Count – 217
On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness–and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses: artistic Alma; the aging Miss Lora; Magdalena, who thinks all Dominican men are cheaters; and the love of his life, whose heartbreak ultimately becomes his own.
How to Stop Feeling Like Shit by Andrea Owen
Page Count – 224
Goodreads
How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t is a straight-shooting approach to self-improvement for women, one that offers no-crap truth-telling about the most common self-destructive behaviors women tend to engage in. From listening to the imposter complex and bitchy inner critic to catastrophizing and people-pleasing, Andrea Owen–a nationally sought-after life coach–crystallizes what’s behind these invisible, undermining habits. With each chapter, she kicks women’s gears out of autopilot and empowers them to create happier, more fulfilling lives. Powerfully on-the-mark, the chapters are short and digestible, nicely bypassing weighty examinations in favor of punch-points of awareness.
From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón
Page Count – 231
The year is 1635. Iceland is a world darkened by superstition, poverty and cruelty. Men of science marvel over a unicorn’s horn, poor folk worship the Virgin in secret and both books and men are burnt. Jónas Pálmason, a poet and self-taught healer, has been condemned to exile for heretical conduct, having fallen foul of the local magistrate. Banished to a barren island, Jónas recalls his exorcism of a walking corpse on the remote Snjafjoll coast, the frenzied massacre of innocent Basque whalers at the hands of local villagers, and the deaths of three of his children.
Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami
Page Count – 234
These first major works of fiction by Haruki Murakami center on two young men–an unnamed narrator and his friend and former roommate, the Rat. Powerful, at times surreal, stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism, these novellas bear all the hallmarks of Murakami’s later books, giving us a fascinating insight into a great writer’s beginnings, and are remarkable works of fiction in their own right. Here too is an exclusive essay by Murakami in which he explores and explains his decision to become a writer. Prequels to the much-beloved classics A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, these early works are essential reading for Murakami completists and contemporary fiction lovers alike.
Classic Tales of Horror by Edgar Allan Poe
Page Count – 238
Not for those of a nervous disposition, this chilling collection contains some of Edgar Allan Poe’s best known stories, including The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death.
Themes of guilt, fear and revenge abound as the master of gothic horror transports readers into mysterious worlds, carries them on dangerous sea voyages, and investigates gruesome murders in tales such as The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Cask of Amontillado.
Exploring the hidden depths of the human mind, these are tales full of thrills and intrigue.
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
Page Count – 275
But in the second book of the Uglies series, Tally’s Pretty. And everything’s changed. The new, Pretty Tally is totally happy right where she is. She doesn’t think she needs any kind of cure at all. When someone from her Ugly life shows up with a message, Tally has a hard time listening. Did she really promise to give all this up? Is she bound by a promise she made when she was a different person? If there is anything left of the old Tally, how will she fight her way out to keep her word and help her friends?
The Subjects by Sarah Hopkins
Page Count – 288
A courtroom intervention. A long car ride to a big country house. Other ‘gifted delinquents’: the elusive, devastating Rachel, and Alex, so tightly wound he seems about to shatter.
So where are they? It’s not a school, despite the ‘lessons’ with the headsets and changing images. It’s not a psych unit—not if the absence of medication means anything. It’s not a jail, because Daniel’s free to leave. Or that’s what they tell him.
He knows he and the others are part of an experiment.
But he doesn’t know who’s running it or what they’re trying to prove. And he has no idea what they’re doing to him.
Goth by Otsuichi
Page Count – 295
Morino is the strangest girl in school—how could she not be, given her obsession with brutal murders? And there are plenty of murders to grow obsessed with, as the town in which she lives is a magnet for serial killers. She and her schoolmate will go to any length to investigate the murders, even putting their own bodies on the line. And they don’t want to stop the killers—Morino and her friend simply want to understand them.
The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
Page Count – 304
After her mother’s suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother’s mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran…fast and far away.
Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.
What book got you out of a reading slump? Comment below.
FOLLOW ME
- Goodreads
- Instagram (@shelvesofspines)
- Twitter (@shelvesofspines)
- Bloglovin’
Shelves of Spines 
Pingback: Weekly Update #23 | 04/05 – 04/11 | Shelves of Spines