It’s Top Ten Tuesday time once again friends. I don’t often pick up books outside of my comfort zone but sometimes I get the urge or fall for the hype and end up giving in. I have a lit rpg on my list, a historical book which I usually hate and a few others that ended up pleasantly surprising me!
A Short Stay in Hell is a clever and unsettling read that turns a simple idea into something deeply thought provoking. It begins with a darkly funny twist as a Mormon man dies and discovers he chose the wrong religion. The true faith was Zoroastrianism, and now he must spend eternity in a Hell shaped like an infinite library. His only task is to find the one book that tells the story of his life. Once he does, he’s free to leave, though the odds of ever finding it are almost impossible.
The concept is fascinating and slowly becomes disturbing as the vastness of eternity sets in. The endless shelves, filled mostly with meaningless combinations of letters, capture the futility and madness of an infinite search for meaning. Peck blends humour and horror in a way that feels both strange and human, raising quiet questions about faith, purpose and the limits of understanding.
The novella shines most when exploring how people respond to hopelessness. The small society that forms inside the library feels both familiar and tragic, a reflection of how we repeat the same mistakes even in new worlds. The writing is simple and clear, but sometimes a little too restrained for such a powerful idea. I found myself wanting more… more emotion, more time with the characters and a deeper sense of closure.
Still, it’s a haunting little story that stays with you. Peck manages to capture the fear of infinity without relying on fire or suffering. Instead, he shows how eternity itself can be the most frightening punishment of all.
⭐️3/5 stars This is a book I feel like I’ll be thinking about for a while!
First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?
“The peculiar gargoyle, who spoke mostly in broken parables, shuffled to the dim corner of the ambulatory. There, strung between iron candlesticks, a spider’s web held a fly captive.”
If you are unaware what the Buzzword Readathon/Challenge is see my prior post HERE. Last month the buzzword was a book with ‘a violent/bad’ word in the title and I’m going to count Hex by Jenni Fagan as a pretty bad word so yay for me for actually completing a prompt within the month!
For November the buzzword is a book with a ‘never’ in the title and a couple options I have are:
Amy Leigh Reads 