A Short Stay in Hell

6 star book! I have read 84 books this year so far and never give any book 5 stars but this I have given a book 6 stars.. this is the book every person should read.. 102 pages of absolutely mind bending writing! It will have you questioning your very existence and leave you thinking about it for days/weeks 👍🏼 get it read !

A lot goofier at first than i was led to believe. But it does get under your skin towards the end. Something like aniara is better though

This slim novel packs an existential punch. While it’s deeply philosophical, it still has a surprising amount of heart. I felt emotionally engaged from the start, even though the narrative often leans into abstract ideas rather than character driven drama. The depiction of Hell is what really stayed with me. How something so expansive could feel so suffocating. Peck’s take on the library was completely new to me (I hadn’t encountered Borges before), it felt original and disturbing. Soren, our narrator, isn’t someone to root for in the traditional sense but he works perfectly as a vessel for exploring the book’s weighty ideas. The pacing was spot on. It’s short but doesn’t feel lacking, and while I could have read more, everything was so well crafted that it didn’t need extra pages. The atmosphere is relentlessly oppressive and claustrophobic. Certainly not hopeful but powerful in its bleakness. I completely agree with others who say it’s quietly terrifying. The scale of it all, the impossibility of ever finding meaning or escape, really got under my skin. I’ve only just finished it so it’s hard to say which parts will linger most, but I suspect it’ll stay with me for a long time and the more I think about it the more I realise I can’t fault it, so I’m giving it the full five stars.

A wonderful and thoughtful inspiring book about what true hell looks like and the nature of humanity. No spoilers just read it and let it sit with you.

Soren always believed that when he died he would be reunited with his loved ones who had passed before him. However, when the day eventually arrives he is cast into a hell by a God he does not know. Here is finds himself faced with the prospect of living forever in a vast library, his only escape is to find the story of his life in a library that contains every book that has ever been written and every book that could ever be written. A Short Stay in Hell is one of the best and most haunting descriptions of hell I have ever read. When Soren first arrives he does not quite realise the enormity of the task a head of him and embraces the challenge of finding his story. As he works his way through the Library he finds miles of shelving full of books of jibberish, only occasionally coming across a word or sentence that makes sense. It is only now he truly begins to comprehend how many books he needs to look through before he finds one that might tell the story of his life. As the years pass in hell Soren makes friends and enemies and falls in and out of love while slowly losing all meaning and context to his existence. He loses any sense of place as everywhere becomes a uniform monotony, slowly sending him to the brink of madness. This was one of the best short stories I have read in a long time and haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. This is no firey hell with the screams of the damned. This is a hell where an individual loses all meaning to their existence, to die in this hell is to wake up again the next day faced with the same impossible and empty task, it truly is a descent into madness and I loved it.

One of the best short novels I have ever read, equally funny and terrifying at the same time. Soft cover edition is ok, nothing out of the ordinary. Print quality was also good.

As others have said this is a very good read and I highly recommend it. I comment only to say: Shame on the publishers. The paperback is cheap and nasty; I doubt if I was browsing in a bookshop I would have bought this book. You might as well read it on a kindle, you will miss nothing.

This short but punchy (horror-ish) novel explores our understanding of size and depth and eternity. Arriving in Hell is just the start of a long and never ending journey…

I was very excited to read this book but found it lacking. Felt very pretentious and frustrating. Pointless with no clarity or closure, probably the point of the book as it's about being in hell.

Amazing book!huge recommend,pulls togehter science/religion and fantasy in one great read! Came deliverd in good condition everything awesome^^

An interesting and daunting concept of what hell could be like. A good read.

I really enjoyed this book. I was in quite a reading slump and this book reeled me back in. I love quirky books like this. Stuff that is so outlandish and crazy. Super quick read too. I read it in about two hours.

This book is truly short and sweet - if the sweet you are looking for is exhistential dread and a thought provoking read. It really lingers with you even after it’s finished, I truly recommend this - all of us have wondered at some point what happens in the afterlife, so being touched by this story is inevitable.