Would you read a book like this?
(TW: Suicide)
I've been writing a sort of coming of age, slice of life, surrealistic book. This is kinda a brain dump of it, so don't take it TOO seriously.
The main character is a boy in his last year of high school who is pretty hopeless and currently has no aspirations. My book starts of with him encountering the Sandman (folk figure), who puts a spell on him to continuously dream of this mysterious girl, (it is intentionally unclear whether the interaction is in a dream or not.) Then he meets the girl in the real world by sort of coincidence, they both don't really have any friends in their school so they become friends. A key thing is that the representation of the girl in his dream is of her inner psyche (which is honestly really depressed) and then the girl in the real world is outwardly quite eccentric and positive seeming and yeah. As he gets to know her, he notices some correlations between the blurred girl in the dream world and her, along with beginning to feel his old aspirations resurface by her influence. (The chapters alternate between the two worlds, think Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murakami.) But by the time he sort of realises that they are the same she kicks the bucket, or is implied to anyway. There is a LOT more details to it and I swear it does make more sense, but that said I guess it's sort of meant to be like a fever dream. The main themes of the book though is like relationships, growing up, mediocrity, depression, cynicism, meaning, purpose, and hope through hard times.
(Also, the girl is not just a throw-away character or anything with no purpose other than to make the mc grow, it might seem like that but I just haven't FULLY developed her YET. I have a lot more to do, this is a very basic outline. In the end, she might not even kick the bucket, who knows (not me.))
Anyway, I'm just posting this to see if anyone would read something of this sort, if it's not your cup of tea, please don't try to hate on it. I've only started the first draft, lots of stuff unsolved + plot holes. This is a loose idea still.
Posted Feb 23, 2026, 6:05 AM UTC