A slump is almost never a motivation problem. It is usually a book problem: something too long, too slow, or too demanding for the week you are having.
Everything here is under about 450 pages, moves quickly, and gives you a reason to turn the page rather than asking you to be patient. Start with the shortest one.
T. Kingfisher · 116 pages · 2023
The fairy who cursed the sleeping princess has been guarding the tower for centuries, and she had extremely good reasons.
Becky Chambers · 160 pages · 2021
A tea monk meets the first robot anyone has seen in centuries, and it has one question: what do people need?
Sayaka Murata · 163 pages · 2016
Keiko has worked the same Tokyo convenience store for eighteen years and is perfectly happy, which everyone treats as a problem to solve. Deadpan and very short.
Sosuke Natsukawa · 198 pages · 2017
A boy inherits his grandfather's secondhand bookshop and a talking tabby recruits him to rescue mistreated books. Short, odd, and openly a love letter to reading.
Oyinkan Braithwaite · 226 pages · 2018
Korede cleans up after her beautiful younger sister's boyfriends keep dying. Then the sister starts dating the doctor Korede is in love with. Short, sharp, Lagos.
Toshikazu Kawaguchi · 240 pages · 2015
A Tokyo basement cafe where one seat sends you back in time until your coffee cools, and nothing you do changes the present. Four small stories that all land.
Rachel Yoder · 256 pages · 2021
A mother who gave up her art for a toddler becomes convinced she is turning into a dog, and the book declines to say she is wrong.
Matt Haig · 288 pages · 2020
Between life and death there is a library where every book is a life you could have lived. A gentle, very readable book about regret.
Alice Oseman · 288 pages · 2019
Two boys at an all-boys grammar school sit next to each other in form and everything follows from that. Illustrated, kind, and about ninety minutes long.
Ashley Poston · 288 pages · 2023
She inherits her aunt's apartment and finds it occasionally opens onto seven years ago, where a man is staying who is about to become someone she already knows.