Heartrending and poignant, Beloved is the story of a mother who has had to go through too much and the family she’s made in the wake of freeing herself from enslavement.

There’s so much I could say about this book, but I worry they’d turn into an essay rather than a review. Beloved is emotionally rich with layers to dig into—I know I’ll spend more time thinking about these people and the world they inhabit. Suffice it to say that if you read this book, Morrison’s writing will leave you just as haunted as Sethe’s house.

In typical Douglas Adams fashion, Dirk Gently is a comedic romp throughout. This time around, there’s a murder mystery for our titular sleuth to solve.

However, said sleuth is a precog whose knack for running up expenses in pursuit of truth requires him to change names to avoid confrontation. Also, our murdered man’s ghost lingers to leave messages on friends’ answering machines. And our main suspect is a known innocent, as we followed his perspective the whole evening the crime took place.

Oh, and by the way, there’s a time-traveling horse in the bathroom. Don’t worry about it—that’ll be relevant later.

My one gripe is that due to its brevity, the novella spares less room for explaining the crime’s solution than might be necessary considering everything that’s going on. Don’t expect a “holistic” interrogation of facts, though, and you’re in for a treat with Dirk Gently’s guidance.

If you like the weird, the unsettling, and the off-putting, you’ll likely enjoy this novel. I wish it was longer so we could explore the characters more fully. By the end, there’s so many questions I have, and knowing there’s no answers is both delightful and frustrating—and that’s the point.

The philosophical turn about two-thirds of the way through the book intrigued me, and I think that’s what I really want more of. The quote the title comes from reminds me of the cosmic/eco-horror in Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer in the best of ways. The Zone and Area X are insidiously, deliciously, weird.

However, the book isn’t without flaws, and it’s a product of its own time. This is most obvious in the casual racism and sexism that requires you, the reader, to push past it and see the heart of things. If you’re able to, I think you have a really interesting piece on your hands here with Roadside Picnic.