I picked I Fear My Pain Interests You, by Stephanie LaCava, looking for a literary-fiction story with strong psychological undertones. What I got instead was “the next Great American Novel“, but let me be upfront: I mean this in the worst possible manner, using it entirely ironically.
Indeed, my motivation behind writing a review for this novel was very simple: I absolutely loathed it. This is the kind of pointless drivel you’d expect from 15-year-old edgelords thinking they’re writing avant-garde literature. I know, I used to be one.
Another fun fact: I almost gave up on the novel at the 90% mark, which would’ve been an amazing thing to do, but I sadly had to finish it since I’d decided to write this review.
Of course, that I hated I Fear My Pain Interests You is not very… interesting to you. But why I hated it might be, because it reveals a lot about how and why literature is written nowadays – in the US (see earlier note) and places copying the US.
