5 Trippy Books to Leave You Shook

This book fits the trippy genre to a T. It is sci-fi, mindf**king greatness. From Iain Reid, the bestselling author of the brain-wrenching I’m Thinking of Ending Things. This dystopian novel is set in the near future where Junior and Henrietta live on an isolated farm with only each other for company. One day, a stranger unexpectedly appears at their door, claiming that Junior has been selected to be part of a journey to space and that he will be away for many years. Although Henrietta is not invited along, she will not be alone while Junior is away. This freaky, futuristic page-turner has a premise and an ending that’ll knock you out of this world (dad joke ✔️).

via GIPHY

Like the great Juicy J once said, “trippy!” I can quote Juicy J here, right? I’m pretty sure he was talking about this book. From the author of the Pretty Little Liars series. Eliza Fontaine is a debut author who one day falls into a pool and almost drowns. She claims she was pushed, while everyone else thinks it was a failed attempt at suicide. As people in her life start to confuse her real life with her novel, the line between the two gets blurrier. What is fact and what is fiction?

Dexter Palmer’s Version Control feels like reading an episode of Black Mirror. It takes place in the near future, where Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life after living through tragedy. She can’t help but think something still doesn’t feel just right. She works for a company called Lovability, which is the online dating service where she met her husband to be. He is a mid-level scientist who has dedicated his life to inventing the causality violation device. An easier name for his invention is the time machine (though he prefers you not to call it that). He has the reputation of being a bust, though he may now be closer to a hit than expected. This book reflects on today’s way of life through a futuristic/sci-fi lens, just like Black Mirror.

This novel takes a “what if” premise of the future and turns it into a cyberpunk political thriller. In the late 21^st century, the corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. Information, a monopolistic search engine, has been at the center of it all. Not only does it help to analyze each election, but it also acts as the gatekeeper for all information. With another election in sight, we get to see everything unfold.

This collaboration between the father/son duo of Stephen and Owen King questions what would happen if women disappeared from the world. Every woman in this futuristic universe, besides one, falls asleep and gets shifted to another place. The one outlier is Eve Black. As this men-only world falls into rage without women, they are left with the question, Is Eve a threat or not? Super trippy, I know. Now it’s time to grab some more of that mystery popcorn and get reading!