The book that I completed was another short novella called You Should Have Left, by German author, Daniel Kehlmann. It was written in 2016 and is around 115 pages or so. Thats an estimate. I read it on my Kobo (e-reader) so I don't know the exact page count. But I read it in just a little over a day so its a quick read, which I'm really digging at the moment. Anyway, the genre is psychological thriller and I for one did find it thrilling. It sucked me in quick and I couldn't put it down. It was mysterious and it provoked a certain amount of anxiety in me while reading, as any good thriller does so it fit the genre nicely.
The synopsis is pretty simple, a writer and his wife and child head to the German Alps to get away and to find quiet and solitude. The husband uses the time to focus on writing a sequel to his hit screenplay.
Once in the house he and his family begin to notice certain unexplained anomalies and eventually he realizes that the house might be trying to trap them all inside.
The story is a first person narrative through the husbands perspective.
I want to mention the minimalistic cover art of book real quick. It looks simple but its actually a very clever design. For one thing its a nod to the books setting in the mountains. The misshapen triangle also represents an idea that is presented in the story where the man is prompted to draw a right triangle and then measure its angles. The man does so and comes to find that the angles just don't seem to add up, no matter how many times he draws one. The idea was an interesting use of math in a story that I found very unique. I think that its clever that the two concepts are portrayed in the cover art.
The book was also made into a movie by the same name. It stars Kevin Bacon, Amanda Seyfried and Avery Tiiu Essex. I haven't seen it yet, so I dont know if its any good but I'm looking out for it. Let me know in the comments if you've seen the film and what you thought of it? I would like to see how they portray some of the ideas from the book so ill keep looking out for it.
Overall I really enjoyed the book and thought that it was the perfect length to tell its story. Short and sweet, as they say. It was well written and well translated and stayed true to the thriller genre. It was a page turner for me and I found it intellectually engaging enough to keep me interested. Id give it 5 out of 5 stars myself.
