We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(6) Tree Line
Other Voices, Other Rooms takes place in the 20th-century US, and is mostly focused through a boy's perspective. Easy-peasy, right? How complicated are kids?
Um, kind of complicated, as it turns out. Especially when they're fever-dreaming, and speaking via stream-of-consciousness. And it's not just our boy Joel that's a tad flowery—the adults around him speak in what sometimes seems like code, and often in dialect.
But this book is not only beautifully written; it's so thick with juicy intrigue that you'll work through it. Remember, this debut novel was a bestseller… and you don't get on the bestseller list if people are throwing the book down in frustration. If audiences in the late 1940s were lapping up this book like a kitten does with a saucer of cream, we'll wager that you will too.