that state of limbo where you don't have a current read and nothing seems to satisfy you, like when you hit shuffle on a playlist and just skip every single song without any idea what you're looking for

I'm finally back home in Geneva – just landed this morning – and I've resolved to once and for all finish a good enough draft of my absurdist novel that I've been working on since 2014 so I can start thinking about agents (!!!). But I also want to keep reading. Jialong has this book called Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett that I started on the plane from Taiyuan to Beijing but I can't really touch it since it's his 'Currently Reading' right now so he kind of always has it on his person. I'm not in the mood for the political books I bought when I got super excited about being an intellectual, or my summer reading list. But none of the books at home are calling to me... I picked up To The Lighthouse and didn't feel up to reading something so difficult, so instead I took out The Sellout by Paul Beatty, which I started a while ago but felt that the narrator's voice was too intense for me at the time. Frances keeps telling me to read it though, so I should at some point. But then I saw The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (a Swiss book!) that I bought in London over a year ago because I was seeing it everywhere and stopped after a page because it was ........ so bad. I picked it up again just now, thinking that I could race through this trashy thriller and feel good about finishing such a hefty volume, but I don't know if I can do it. Maybe because I'm reading it in translation (but no professional translator can be THIS bad, right?) but it is awful, awful, insufferable. I can't even describe how bad it is. I just can't believe this was considered for the Prix Goncourt. The way it introduces exposition is so awkward and clunky, and the narration isn't immersive at all. It feels like someone summarising, in high detail, the plot of the book, instead of the book itself. I had a sharp headache in my temple earlier today that has just returned because of this book.

Should I finish it? Is the cheap thrill derived from watching a complex mystery unravel worth the deeply irritating writing style? Is there even going to be a good ending? Are these 600 pages going to be the end of me?

To the 3 people who read my blog, please advise in the comments. I'm suffering. I need something to read. Yes I could be reading Proust on my iPad, or Woolf, or The Sellout, or any of the many, many books I have. But right now please tell me yes or no - should I force my way through this drivel? Is patriotism a good reason? Maybe I should be motivated by writing an awful review after... but will I even have the strength to?

I guess first things first is to go to the Apple Store and have this rattling noise on my Macbook looked at.