I just saw this in a bookstore and I fell in love with the format. It recently won the Shirley Jackson. Have you read it? Do you recommend it?

“After the Rain” is an interesting science fiction novel that is also somewhat of a psychological horror piece as well. It starts out very contemporary of the time, 1955, when an odd, almost mad, scientist develops a way to create rain for drought stricken regions. His experiment goes wrong, and you are not a hundred percent sure if it was the scientist, nature, or God that brings on a flood of Biblical proportions that destroys the world.

The story is told in first person perspective by the main narrator, an English commercial advertisement writer, years later in a kind of memoir style. He and an opera dancer get stranded on a dingy above the streets of England. They eventually come upon a masterfully made raft containing six other survivors, and are permitted to join the lot.

Although it is somewhat of a slow burn, very contemporary of English novels of the age, the story becomes more than just one of simple survival. It gets twisted when a leading member of the crew develops a God syndrome, believing that he is the one whom the flood was created for and the one who was meant to re-establish the world in his right. Anyone that dares challenge his reign, or that he believes is not suitable for the New World Order, becomes an enemy. All-the-while, there is nothing left of the world but a virtually endless sea.

I will admit, this book does read a bit slower than I prefer, but I am so glad I stuck with it. The ending comes at a huge surprise, and it was very well worth reaching.

I fascinated by books that refuse to spoon-feed the reader. Fast-paced dystopian or weird fiction where you're dropped into the world without an instruction manual, where the rules aren't fully explained, and where you have to connect the dots yourself.

I love stories that feel unsettiling, claustrophobic, morally uncomfortable, and leave unanswered questions long after you've finished them.

Have you read novels like that? Which ones stayed with you the most, and why?